Membership of Czech political parties shrinking

The number of members of Czech political parties has been shrinking, daily Pravo reported and added that the senior government and the strongest right-wing party, Civic Democrats (ODS), lost almost 9000 people in three years. The number of some 33,000 in 2009 has dropped to 24,506 now, the paper said referring to the party's web page. The number has come close to that of the ODS's political rival on the left, the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), that had 23,802 members as from April 1, Pravo said.