page_title: Politics of the Czech Republic
section_title: Legislative branch
hierarchical_section_title: Politics of the Czech Republic / Legislative branch
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Zasedací sál Poslanecké sněmovny Parlamentu České republiky English: Chamber of deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Español: Interior de la Cámara de Diputados del Parlamento de la República Checa.
context_page_description: The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, in which the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Government of the Czech Republic which reports to the lower house of Parliament. The Legislature is bicameral, with the Chamber of Deputies consisting of 200 members and the Senate consisting of 81 members. Both houses together make up the Parliament of the Czech Republic.
  The political system of the Czech Republic is a multi-party system. Since 1993, the two largest parties were the center-left Czech Social Democratic Party and right-wing Civic Democratic Party. This model changed in early 2014, with the rise of a new political party ANO 2011 which led to weakening of both major parties. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Czech Republic a "flawed democracy" in 2019.
context_section_description: The Parliament (Parlament České republiky) has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies (Poslanecká sněmovna) has 200 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation with a 5% election threshold. There are 14 voting districts identical to the country's administrative regions. The Chamber of Deputies, at first the Czech National Council, has the powers and responsibilities of the now defunct federal parliament of the former Czechoslovakia.
  The Senate (Senát) has 81 members, in single-seat constituencies elected by two-round runoff voting for a six-year term, with one third renewed every even year in the autumn. The first election was 1996 (for differing terms). This is patterned after the U.S. Senate but each constituency is of the (roughly) same size and the system used is two-round runoff voting. The Senate is unpopular among the public and suffers from low election turnout (overall roughly 30% in the first round, 20% in the second).
caption: Interior of Poslanecká sněmovna
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