Czech parties will have a hard time agreeing on a new government after Tuesday's no-confidence vote and an early election is difficult to achieve, leaving the country to face protracted political wrangling.

Four defectors from the Czech ruling three-party minority coalition voted alongside the opposition leftists in the vote, bringing the government down halfway through its six-month term as EU president and more than a year before an election scheduled for mid-2010. President Vaclav Klaus, a eurosceptic estranged from Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's Civic Democrats, will now have the right to pick the next prime minister.

Topolanek said he wanted Klaus to give him a new mandate to try forming a new cabinet, a hard task given that neither the left nor the right commands majority in the lower house.

The balance of power lies with a handful of independents who have defected from both camps.

The left may also try to lure over some deputies and form a majority, which would include the far-left Communists, but that may be difficult given the parliamentary numbers. Klaus has in the past refused to allow the Communists any share of power.

Topolanek's cabinet could stay in power for weeks or months, even after it resigns, to ensure continuity.

"What will follow now depends mainly on the president," said political analyst Bohumil Dolezal of Charles University.

"The government is in resignation until the president appoints the new prime minister... which he can do whenever he pleases; the constitution does not bind him."

Any new government must ask for confidence.

If it fails, Klaus appoints another nominee. If he or she fails as well, the president will appoint a third one, this time nominated by the lower house speaker, a leftist Social Democrat.

If the third prime minister fails to win confidence as well, Klaus can dissolve the house and call an early election, ahead of regular vote due in mid-2010. Klaus refused to comment on when he would appoint a new prime minister.

The Czech government crisis has a precedent in 1998, when political gridlock was broken by a cross-party deal to call an early election via a constitutional amendment.

This is a possible way forward, but that would require an agreement of both Topolanek's Civic Democrats and the leftist Social Democrats. The constitutional amendment would have to be backed by three-fifth majority in both houses of parliament.

So far, Paroubek has spoken in favour of an early election in the autumn this year or in the spring next year, and there should be a government of experts not tied to political parties.

Topolanek said he would not support any such government and if no fully-fledged government is formed, elections should be held in the summer this year.

"I think that if elections were to be tied to European Parliament elections (in June), it wouldn't be very realistic," said political lecturer Pavel Saradin from Masaryk University.

"It would hard to imagine that in July or August, when people are on holiday. The most likely, ideal period would be sometime in September or sometime in the autumn of 2009."