HN: Presidential polls offer revival of politics

Prague, Jan 14 (CTK) - The possible election of Karel Schwarzenberg as Czech president later this month would eliminate or considerably reduce the influence of Milos Zeman and Vaclav Klaus and thereby enable a revival of Czech politics, Jiri Leschtina writes in daily Hospodarske noviny yesterday.

Klaus, the outgoing president, has called this weekend's first round of the direct presidential polls "the right-wing's debacle," thus copying presidential contender Zeman's tactic of presenting the election as a battle between left- and right-wing ideas, Leschtina writes.

This approach, however, only covers up what is really at stake: Zeman and Schwarzenberg's different approach to politics as such, he writes.

In fact the debacle was not suffered by the right wing but by the right-wing political style that was embodied mainly by Klaus, the then finance minister and prime minister, in the Czech post-communist period, Leschtina writes.

The election fiasco of Premysl Sobotka, candidate of the senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) that was founded and for a long time headed by Klaus in the 1990s, is another symptom of the ODS's accelerated dying, Leschtina continues.

However, it was not only Mirek Topolanek, the ODS head and prime minister in the 2000s, and his present successor in both posts, Petr Necas, who always pushed and still continues pushing the ODS towards a decline, let alone Premysl Sobotka, Senate deputy chairman.

It was mainly Klaus, who, while ODS chairman in 1991-2002, "succeeded" in deleting "details" such respect for laws, which are typical of the genuine right, from the list of the ODS's basic values, Leschtina writes.

Since becoming president in early 2003, Klaus has successfully torpedoed any attempts at reforming the ODS, Leschtina writes.

The ODS voters, who faced hard tests and repeated disappointments at the ODS's performance in the past years, did not stay home like in the autumn regional polls and took part in the first round of the presidential election. A large number of them might have voted for Schwarzenberg, foreign minister and conservative junior ruling TOP 09 chairman, Leschtina writes.

Not that the ODS voters ignore Schwarzenberg's problematic alliance with Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09 deputy head), but they simply relied on Schwarzenberg's life-long approach to civic and democratic values, which the ODS gradually lost on its way to cronyism, Leschtina writes.

The ODS's story should be a lesson for the rival mainstream party, the Social Democrats (CSSD), which Zeman used to chair and with which he has fallen out [like Klaus with the ODS], but from which he never completely disappeared [like Klaus from the ODS], Leschtina says.

Zeman has his allies among the CSSD top leaders. In addition, he is backed by another party, or political mafia linked to dubious business based in the Kremlin, Leschtina writes.

He refers to the small Citizens' Rights Party (SPOZ) of which Zeman is the honorary chairman and presidential candidate.

Zeman does not hide his ambition to attend, as president, meetings of the government, Leschtina continues, recalling that the next government will probably be formed by the CSSD.

Nor does Zeman conceal his plan to appoint some ministers in exchange for the cabinet meeting his demands, Leschtina writes.

In view of this, the danger Zeman poses for the CSSD probably even exceeds the danger Klaus poses for the ODS, he points out.

From this point of view, the support the CSSD voiced for Zeman before the second round of the presidential election is a suicidal move, Leschtina continues.

Let alone the fact that the CSSD has again (after the 2010 elections to the Prague assembly) made "a useful idiot" of its deputy chairman and senator Jiri Dienstbier, who, as the CSSD's presidential candidate, successfully lashed out at Zeman and took many voters' support away from him before the first round, Leschtina writes.

True, a few CSSD officials, including Lubomir Zaoralek and Vladimir Spidla, have protested against the party supporting Zeman in the second round. But the fact alone that the CSSD is sending confused messages confirms that the party comprises two influential factions that differ in their approach to Zeman, Leschtina says.

If Zeman were elected president, a fratricidal struggle would break out in the CSSD, he adds.

As a result, Schwarzenberg's victory could bring relief for both the CSSD and the ODS. The CSSD would probably forever get rid of Zeman. If Klaus, after his March departure from Prague Castle, did not have an influential ally in the next president, the range of his political chances would markedly shrink, Leschtina writes.

Furthermore, it is not sure how long TOP 09's real political leader, Kalousek, would survive Schwarzenberg's departure from the TOP 09 helm. It was mainly "the prince's" popularity, now revived, that brought TOP 09, the then brand-new party, to the Chamber of Deputies and thus also Kalousek to the cabinet in 2010, Leschtina writes.

The first ever Czech direct presidential election could have an unexpected effect - a chance of political revival, not through philanthropic movements or new inscrutable parties, but through reforming the old, well-known parties, Leschtina concludes.