The KSCM (Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia) had 77,115 members at the end of 2007, the KSCM central committee writes in the report. "Of course, our rank-and-file originates from the past era," KSCM deputy chairman Jiri Dolejs has told CTK. He said young people do enter the KSCM at present, but they leave it after a year, as the current KSCM does not meet their idea of appropriate political work.
They also face the party's aged rank-and-file, he said. The decline in KSCM membership oscillates at 6-7 percent a year, while the membership grows by 0.6 to 0.68 percent a year. The KSCM is ageing. The average age Some Czech Communists want to radically change party policy - MP ...
Defectors,SZ's obstinacy to blame for Czech Klaus' success - KSCM ...
KSCM fields Bobosikova as candidate in Czech presidential poll ... of a KSCM member is 70 years now, and even almost 75 years in Prague, compared to 68.1 in 2004 when the party's previous national congress took place. The KSCM remembers with nostalgia the times when its rank-and-file stood at hundreds of thousands. In the time of the KSCM's congress in late 1992, which adopted a new programme and political line that are still valid, the party had 354,549 members. The KSCM membership first sank below 100,000 in 2004. The party had 94,396 members at the end of that year. Pensioners prevail among KSCM members. There are 67 percent of them, followed by manual workers (15 percent). A majority of KSCM members have only basic education, one-third has secondary education and ten percent university education. The number of members with higher education has slightly increased in the past years. Male members prevail over women in the 55.5-44.5 ratio. Out of the other main Czech parties, a similar decline in membership has hit the Christian Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-CSL), now a junior governing partner. The rank-and-file of the KDU-CSL, a party that legally operated before 1989, declined from about 80,000 in 1996 to the present 40,000. On the other hand, the membership of the Civic Democrats (senior governing ODS), the Social Democrats (senior opposition CSSD) and the Greens (junior ruling SZ), all established or renewed after 1989, has increased in the past years. According to the media information, the ODS had 29,500 members last year, which is 10,000 more than in late 2000. The CSSD's rank-and-file reportedly rose from 16,200 to present 18,300 in the past three years. The SZ had about 2,800 members last year, compared to 1,800 in 2006, when the party entered the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in history.
(Ceske Noviny)
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