ForMin compares govt to Russian-made Lada Niva off-roader

Prague, Aug 29 (CTK) - The Czech three-party coalition government is like the Russian off-roader Lada Niva, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, TOP 09 chairman, said at a meeting with Czech ambassadors who are in Prague attending a regular annual consultative meeting Monday.

The centre-right government emerged from the May 2010 general election. It comprises the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of Prime Minister Petr Necas, TOP 09 and Public Affairs (VV).

It is rather unappealing, but it is succeeding in pushing through a number of things, Schwarzenberg said.

He said the government can hardly have a worse reputation, yet it is working and it has attained many things, it is submitting the promised reforms, which is remarkable.

"I would compare our government to something that some of us know from the past times. It was the Russian off-roader Lada Niva which I myself used quite often. It looked appalling, it was terrible to sit in it, yet it managed any path and took you anywhere you wanted, into the mountains, across swamps," Schwarzenberg said.

"We look terribly like in the Niva," Schwarzenberg said about the government.

"It (the government) emits strange sounds and from outside it looks as if we were only fighting all the time. In fact, it is very industrious and many things have been done," Schwarzenberg said.

He said this is also proved by the recent raising of the Czech Republic's rating by Standard & Poor's.

The government has been continuously living through scandals. As soon as one is settled down, another one breaks out.

The latest one has culminated in TOP 09's ministers having stopped attending government meetings in reaction to the activities and dubious statements by the controversial clerk of the Education Ministry, Ladislav Batora, whose departure they demand.

Batora, head of the D.O.S.T. conservative group who ran for an ultra-right party in elections in the past, is personnel section head at the Education Ministry headed by Josef Dobes (VV).

Meanwhile, the VV has raised objections to some measures within the social reform that the Chamber of Deputies is to start discussing on Tuesday.