LN: Schwarzenberg's team responsible for his defeat

Prague, Jan 29 (CTK) - Not the Czech nation but the team of Karel Schwarzenberg has failed and is to blame for his defeat in the second round of the presidential election, Martin Weiss writes in the daily Lidove noviny (LN) yesterday.

Foreign Minister and government TOP 09 chairman Schwarzenberg, 75, lost to the leftist candidate, former Social Democrat prime minister Milos Zeman, 68, who received 54.8 percent of the vote in the second round on January 25-26.

Weiss writes that it is cheap and potentially dangerous to develop theories about what Zeman's victory can tell on the Czech society. If Schwarzenberg's supporters want to give vent to their disappointment, instead of emigration or a civil war "they should rather focus on the election team of their candidate."

Most voters reacted to Zeman's demagogy and they nodded to his defence of the post war Benes-Decrees, on the basis of which ethnic Germans were transferred from then Czechoslovakia after WWII and their property was confiscated, since no one else presented other strong alternative topics.

The same people who felt disgusted by corruption last year voted for Zeman with whose government corruption practices were connected. Why? Weiss asks. Because Schwarzenberg's young team did not highlight any strong topics and Zeman filled the "vacuum," he adds.

Schwarzenberg's team did not realise the immense difference between the elections to the Senate, in which a candidate must win majority in one, usually homogeneous ward, or to the Chamber of Deputies, in which a five-percent threshold must be crossed, and the direct presidential polls.

In their second round, the candidate who wants to succeed must address mainly the undecided. Yet Schwarzenberg's campaign was based on the identification with him and he was addressing his fan club only, Weiss adds.

His team was not able to quickly react to Zeman's sharp attacks and lies and thus persuade the public and journalists.

When Zeman launched his verbal attacks on Schwarzenberg over the latter's criticism of the post-war Sudeten Germans' deportations in a TV duel, Schwarzenberg's team found Zeman's old statements on this issue, in which he expressed different views, and started sending them to journalists only two days later, Weiss recalls.

Besides, in the United States, the election teams of the two rival presidential candidates are negotiating about the number, dates, venues and rules of TV debates months beforehand. Each team is striving for the form suitable for its respective candidate, Weiss recalls.

Zeman did not conceal that he would rely on TV duels before the second round since he can express himself better and he had more stamina than Schwarzenberg and he preferred a direct confrontation. Despite it, Schwarzenberg's team nodded to everything, and this is why he underwent seven (!) TV debates with Zeman in which he did not know what to do, Weiss writes.

Young aides to Schwarzenberg probably expected citizens not to vote for Zeman because they remembered his past though they could not remember themselves who Zeman was.

Schwarzenberg's team may have imagined leading a positive campaign and expected the media to remind people of Zeman's past sins. However, this cannot work as the media cannot deal with past issues as they must bring current news, which their readers demand, Weiss points out.

This is why the judgement about the nation's failure in the presidential election is preposterous. There are enough people who have a more direct responsibility for the result, Weiss writes in conclusion.