Czech labor minister resigns over deputy bribery charge

The Czech center-right government, already splintered by corruption scandals over the past year, has suffered another blow: its labor and social affairs minister, Jaromír Drábek, resigned Wednesday, after his deputy was hit with a bribery charge. This is not good news for Prime Minister Petr Nečas, whose cabinet has been teetering precariously since trying to push through a tax hike that Nečas believes is necessary for keeping the budget deficit below 3 percent of GDP in 2013. The rebellion of senior coalition party (ODS) backbenchers, who refuse to back the government’s tax and pension changes threatens to sink the government, while President Václav Klaus’s veto of key pension reforms has further weakened its hold on power.