Half of Czechs want outgoing President Klaus to leave politics

Prague, Oct 25 (CTK) - Nearly half of Czechs (48.6 percent) believe outgoing President Vaclav Klaus should leave politics after his mandate expires in March 2013 and one-fourth said they do not care what he would do, according to a Focus agency's poll released by Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) daily Thursday.

More than one out of four Czechs (28 percent) share the view that Klaus should leave not only politics but completely withdraw from public life after he ends as president.

On the contrary, 19 percent want Klaus to stay in politics, MfD writes.

Seven percent can imagine Klaus becoming the leader of the now senior government Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and 4 percent can imagine his comeback as prime minister.

The opinion that Klaus should leave politics next spring slightly prevails even among ODS supporters.

The poll was conducted on 1007 respondents in mid-October.

Some ODS politicians believe Klaus's firm hand should return to the party and replace current ODS chairman Petr Necas, often labelled uncharismatic and weak, and help the ODS whose preferences have been falling for a long time, become popular once again.

ODS MP Boris Stastny said he believes Klaus should actively influence the ODS development after his presidential mandate expires.

"Klaus would be able to halt leftist tendencies of some our members in time and he would prevent the ODS from self-destructively moving towards centrist politics," Stastny told MfD.

Stastny criticises the ODS leadership for raising taxes.

Petr Tluchor, head of a group of six ODS rebel MPs who refuse to support a draft tax package now tied to a vote of confidence in Necas's coalition government, told MfD that Klaus should take the post of ODS leader.

But MP Jan Vidim said he believes Klaus's return to the ODS would be good neither for the party nor for Klaus. Vidim added that he considers himself a supporter of Klaus's political views.

After a recent debacle in the regional and Senate elections, Necas will be defending his post of party leader at the ODS election congress on November 2-4.

Klaus has been president since March 2003. He founded the ODS in the early 1990s and was its leader from 1991 to 2002. In 2002-2008 he was ODS honorary chairman. Klaus gave up the post after disputes with the then ODS leadership.

Klaus plans to focus on his work in his own think tank after leaving the Presidential Office.

But he said previously voices urging him to leave politics provoke. Such voices might only make him stubbornly decide to stay, he told Lidove noviny earlier this month.