Reflex: ODS should elect godfathers to its leadership

Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) - The Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of Prime Minister Petr Necas should elect the grey eminences who really control it from the backstage to its leadership and stop watching weak politicians who only interpret the views of these shady figures, Petr Kolar writes in weekly Reflex out yesterday.

The fact that the ODS is in fact controlled by "godfathers", or dubious businessmen and lobbyists, has been known minimally since 2008 when then ODS chairman Mirek Topolanek openly spoke of them and their influence over the party at an ODS congress, Kolar writes.

Though the latest ODS election congress was held only three months ago, most ODS members feel desperate due to the ODS candidate Premysl Sobotka's crushing defeat in the direct presidential election, the plummeting voter support and hardly understandable steps taken by Necas's cabinet, he says.

All feel that something must happen but nobody in the ODS can say what exactly it should be. One can see ODS deputy heads Martin Kuba and Jiri Pospisil cautiously indicating that Necas is responsible for the failure, Kolar writes.

But godfathers Roman Jurecko and Pavel Dlouhy who are controlling Pospisil and Kuba, respectively, would undoubtedly be able to criticise Necas much better.

Before the ODS election congress, Pospisil cooperated with Jurecko and Kuba with Dlouhy. It is not so important that Pospisil managed to get Jurecko on the party's executive council, while Dlouhy did not succeed in being elected to the council and he is still a bit angry at Kuba over it, Kolar writes.

Why are the party's supporters offended by speeches of tedious politicians from the ODS Prague branch like MPs Jan Florian or Boris Stastny when everybody familiar with the situation in the ODS knows that they speak on behalf of grey eminence Ivo Hrdlicka? he asks.

Is their any other explanation why Petr Bendl is ODS regional leader and agriculture minister, apart from the fact that Bendl is linked to godfather Ivo Rittig who arranged that Necas's rival Petr Tluchor, former ODS lower house deputies' group head, was beaten in Central Bohemia? Kolar asks.

Why should Jana Nagyova keep hiding behind the post of head of the prime minister's office when she is far more capable in negotiating than Necas himself? he adds.

Moreover, Nagyova has better ties to Daniel Benes, director general of the state-run majority power utility CEZ, and the Energy Regulatory Office head Alena Vitaskova, and she had a successful meeting with Prague godfather Roman Janousek, Kolar writes.

He says people like Jurecko, Dlouhy and Hrdlicka often argue that they are no godfathers but proper ODS members.

Jurecko is deputy chairman of the ODS branch in the Plzen region and a member of the party's executive council. Dlouhy is deputy mayor of Hluboka nad Vltavou, south Bohemia. Hrdlicka is a member of the Prague regional council.

Dlouhy has been winning one election after another in Hluboka, Jurecka's Plzen was the only region where the ODS won in the regional election last autumn, and Hrdlicka boasts that the ODS won the post of Prague mayor only because he made a pact with the Social Democrats (CSSD), Kolar writes.

Even though some of the ODS godfathers will be ousted from the top league (Alexandr Novak is postponing the start of his prison sentence and Janousek may end up in jail, too), most of the old gang has managed to keep their influence, he says.

These godfathers are capable and successful. The Civic Democrats should finally stop hiding them in the backstage. The party should stop playing false games and elect them to the top posts and see how voters will react, Kolar concludes.