People's Daily Online -- Civic Democratic Party wins victory in Czech Senate election
The Czech Republic's Civic Democratic Party (ODS) has won a crushing victory in the second round of Senate election, according to the results published by the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) on Saturday.

The ODS has won 14 seats in Senate runoff elections, gaining a simple majority in the chamber, according to the CSU.

The ODS has a total of 41 senators in the 81-seat Senate.

Twenty-seven seats in the parliament's upper chamber were to be filled in the weekend runoff, with the top two finishers from last week's first round facing off for each seat in a two-day ballot.

With all the ballots counted, the Civic Democrats were followed by the Social Democrats of former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, which gained six seats and have a total of 12 seats.

The Christian Democrats were placed third, winning four seats, for a total of 10 seats.

Senators are elected to six-year terms, with elections held every two years to fill a third of the chamber.

The Communists did not win in any of the constituencies and they will only have two senators. In the remaining two constituencies, victory was scored by the Party for Open Society ( SOS), the Movement Independent Mayors for the Region (NSK) and one independent.

The voter turn-out was almost 21 percent, which was roughly 2. 5 percent more than two years ago.

After many years of Social Democratic governments and parliaments, the Czech political scene is returning to its right-wing leanings of the mid 1990s. Of course, these results are partly due to the first-past-the-post system for Senate elections. Things are much more balanced in the lower chamber of the parliament - thus the current stalemate.