Czech Election Reflects Dissatisfaction of Voters PARIS - The center-left Social Democrats won the most votes in Czech parliamentary elections on Saturday, but fell short of winning a majority in a vote that underlined voters" deep dissatisfaction with endemic corruption and the political status quo. The country will now enter what is likely to be a lengthy period of deal making as parties scramble to form a coalition government. The Czech Republic, whose first president, Vaclav Havel, helped fashion the country as a global symbol of liberty after the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been undergoing a potent backlash against the political establishment after a scandal over alleged bribery. There is a growing feeling that the revolution of 1989 did not deliver on its aspirations. With nearly all the votes counted, the Social Democrats won 20.5 percent of the vote, a far slimmer victory than expected. Instead, voters turned to protest parties vowing to eliminate corruption, handing 18.7 percent of the vote to the party of Andrej Babis, a Slovak billionaire with a Czech passport. The Communist Party, the last such party in the former satellite countries of the old Soviet bloc, finished third with about 15 percent. The center-right government at the center of the scandal was trounced, receiving only 7.7 percent of the vote. Mr. Babis indicated Saturday that he did not want to join any coalition government, leading analysts to predict a difficult period of political haggling ahead. If Mr. Babis changes his mind, his party, ANO, or Yes, and the Social Democrats could join forces with a third party to form a majority. Alternatively, Mr. Babis could agree to support a minority coalition government. Either way, Mr. Babis, a plain-talking entrepreneur who runs an agricultural, food processing and chemical empire, had emerged as a surprise kingmaker, analysts said. His one-year-old party is personality-driven, and lacks a clear ideology and economic agenda. "Protest parties are the clear winners in these elections, which have shown the extent to which Czechs are fed up with politics in this country, fed up with corruption, and fed up with a bad economy," said Jaroslav Plesl, the deputy editor of Tyden, a leading Czech political magazine. Mr. Plesl said that with the country suffering through hard times, a backlash against austerity had also favored the Social Democrats, who have pledged to increase spending. "We have had weak or no economic growth since 2009 and people feel worse off than they did before," Mr. Plesl said. They feel the politicians have been stealing like crazy. The vote comes amid growing restiveness across the region as people have demonstrated simmering disappointment with the post-1989 political order. In Bulgaria, thousands have protested against endemic corruption and economic hardship. In Hungary, the perceived authoritarianism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has drawn protesters to the streets. Days before the election this weekend, the Czech sculptor, David Cerny, conveyed the visceral anger of many Czechs when he installed a 30-foot-high purple sculpture of a hand with a raised middle finger on a float in the Vltava River in Prague, the Czech capital. It was, he said, aimed at the Prague Castle, the seat of the Czech president, as a potent rebuke of the political class. Then, on a hill overlooking Prague's historic center, a civic group called Dekomunizace put up a huge poster of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia dressed like Stalin - a reminder, the group said, of the country's dark past under the communists. But it is a sign of Czechs" rebellious mood that even the communists, long reviled by many Czechs, performed relatively well. "This election shows a spectacular rise of anti-politics and a huge amount of cynicism, with Czechs saying, "How can things be any worse than what we have had now or in the recent past?" " said Jiri Pehe, the director of New York University in Prague and a former adviser to Mr. Havel. One party that will enter Parliament for the first time, the Dawn of Direct Democracy, was founded by Tomio Okamura, a Czech senator who has preached people power and called for referendums as a way to empower voters.The strong showing of protest parties followed a corruption scandal over the summer involving Petr Necas, the former center-right prime minister. Mr. Necas was forced to resign after it emerged that his chief of staff, Jana Nagyova, who was also his girlfriend, was using the country's security services to spy on his wife. Ms. Nagyova was also accused of bribing three members of Parliament, who had opposed the government, to leave office in return for lucrative posts in state companies. She has denied the charges. Mr. Necas has since divorced his wife and married Ms. Nagyova. The scandal helped fuel a strong backlash against rightist parties, which have had a strong presence in Czech politics since 1989. Alzbeta Sabova, a 23-year-old from Prague who works in public relations, said she had lost faith in the people running the country, and had little optimism that the elections would change anything. "Politics are terrible here," she said before the vote, "a total farce." Ondrej Rous, 27, a restaurant manager, said he was disgusted by the political status quo and that the country was in dire need of a new generation of politicians to shake things up. "We should throw the current lot out of the window," he said.