Schwarzenberg clashes with national myths

Berlin, Jan 23 (CTK) - The cartel that supervises senior posts, sinecures and national myths is doing its best to prevent Karel Schwarzenberg from becoming Czech president, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) writes in its commentary on the ongoing Czech presidential election Wednesday.

Can a person speaking with accent become the president of the Czech Republic? Whose wife does not speak Czech? Who left for exile in the dark times, while the real Czechs bravely faced the Communist regime at the Vltava River? it adds.

Schwarzenberg's wife Therese Schwarzenberg, born Countess zu Hardegg auf Glatz und im Machlande, is an Austrian.

Presidential candidate Schwarzenberg himself lived in 1948-1989 in Austria as his parents fled the Communist regime.

Of course not, this is the warning sent by outgoing Czech President Vaclav Klaus and his wife Livie to their nation after one bizarre candidate advanced to the second round of the Czech presidential election in an inexplicable way, which means against their wishes, FAZ writes.

What was done by Schwarzenberg, current foreign minister and former head of the office of President Vaclav Havel? He has confirmed the worst fears of the presidential couple in attacking Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes and his decrees, it adds.

"I will never forgive this to him," Klaus said about the candidate whose arrival at the Prague Castle, seat of Czech heads of state, he wants to prevent at any cost, FAZ writes.

One can hardly believe one's own eyes. Is this really happening in Prague? Or, rather, in Ukraine? The struggle over who will be the next head of state has nothing in common with the "Velvet" of which Czechs are so proud, it adds.

The bloodless Velvet Revolution overthrew the Communist regime at the end of 1989.

The struggle is bringing one danger: Schwarzenberg, aged 75, is violating the circles of the political caste reaching from Klaus to Zeman that was used to distribute senior posts, influence and many other things in its midst, FAZ writes.

In this system that overcomes all ideological opposites, Havel himself was something alien, someone who was not its part, it adds.

The struggle against Schwarzenberg is also being waged because he has rocked national myths and articles of the faith such as those claiming that the postwar expulsion of Sudeten Germans was necessary and correct, it adds.

Benes's postwar decrees sanctioned the decision.

The "duke's" refusal to toe the line with the political elite caused another recommendation that he should not be elected, FAZ writes.

Former caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer, a civic candidate from the first round, strongly criticised Schwarzenberg for having compared Benes with war criminals, it adds.

However, if answering the question of who harmed the Czech Republic's name most in connection with the presidential election, in the current situation the world might arrive at a different conclusion, FAZ writes.

Fischer was third in the first round of the presidential race with 16.4 percent on January 11-12, while Zeman and Schwarzenberg advanced to the Friday and Saturday run-off with 24.2 and 23.4 percent, respectively.