Schwarzenberg's team disbands

Prague, Jan 30 (CTK) - The election team of unsuccessful Czech presidential candidate Karel Schwarzenberg is ending its activity, it will not found a political group or challenge the polls, though people around victorious Milos Zeman used untrue, close-to-unlawful arguments in the campaign, Marek Prazak said yesterday.

Schwarzenberg's aides also call on those whom the presidential election united to take efforts to help improve the political environment in the Czech Republic, Prazak, the team's spokesman, said.

Schwarzenberg, foreign minister and junior ruling TOP 09 chairman, surprisingly advanced from the first round of the direct election after his popularity sharply increased at the beginning of the year. In the January 25-26 run-off vote he lost to former socialist PM Milos Zeman (Citizens' Rights Party, SPOZ).

Schwarzenberg indicated for daily Hospodarske noviny that he can take up leadership of a new project but not a new political party,

"I'm considering something that stands outside party policy. It is necessary for people who share similar values and resent following the local scene's stupid division into the right and the left to have more opportuntities to met each other," Schwarzenberg told the paper.

Schwarzenberg's team said it respects the election outcome though Zeman and his team used mendacious arguments, close to unlawful.

Earlier this week the team filed a criminal complaint over a controversial advertisement that appeared in the tabloid Blesk and was aimed against Schwarzenberg, presenting his alleged unacceptable positions and views.

Zeman's team dissociated itself from the advertisement that was reportedly ordered by a Prague defence lawyer.