Respekt: Zeman still the same, while society may have changed

Prague, March 11 (CTK) - The Czech presidential inauguration speech of Milos Zeman indicated that the former socialist prime minister is still the same and it is crucial whether Czech society changed over the past ten years when Zeman was absent from politics, Erik Tabery says in weekly Respekt out yesterday.

Zeman replaced Vaclav Klaus as head of state last Friday. He ran for president already in 2003 but he failed then, also because the Social Democrats (CSSD) whose government he had led in 1998-2002 did not fully support him in parliament. It was Klaus who won the presidential election ten years ago.

Tabery says Zeman is like his predecessor Klaus: if there is vacant space, he will immediately occupy it, not caring whether it is an area that the president should not enter.

When Czech senators recently sued Klaus for actions he took as president allegedly in conflict with the constitution, they proved that they are willing to seek the limits that a president should not cross, Tabery writes.

The same can be said about Czech society, Tabery writes.

He says the Czechs have recently been more critical of the mistakes politicians are making, adding that Klaus is an example that shows it clearly.

Due to his arrogance, Klaus as outgoing president made so many mistakes in the past few months that he left the presidential post as a rather unpopular figure, Tabery writes.

Klaus has been widely criticised for his presidential amnesty that applied also to some closely watched cases of extensive corruption and fraud. In public statements, he repeatedly fiercely attacked the late president Vaclav Havel.

Even though Czechs forgave Zeman his controversial past in the direct presidential elections held in January, Zeman cannot take for granted that his future errors would be excused as well, Tabery writes.

In his inauguration speech, Zeman attacked the two forces that had managed to complicate his otherwise undisturbed rule of power in the past, namely Havel and media. Zeman did not forgive either of these opponents, Tabery points out.

Former president Havel made Zeman's rule at the turn of the millennium hard by criticising it and filing complaints with the Constitutional Court, he notes.

Havel died, but his political and moral legacy is a bothersome barrier for Zeman, he says.

"Havel's authority is is an obstacle to Zeman would like to spread about his past political performance," Tabery writes.

He recalls that Zeman in his speech praised the "opposition agreement" power-sharing pact he and Klaus had signed in 1998 as then leaders of the two biggest rival parties, the CSSD and the Civic Democrats (ODS).

Anybody who would be interested in this stage of Czech history would see that Havel strongly criticised the Zeman-Klaus pact and its consequences, Tabery writes.

He says this explains why Klaus and Zeman said at a recent press conference that under Havel things had been more or less stolen in the Presidential Office.

For the same reason, it is no surprise at all that Zeman lashed out at independent media in his inauguration speech last week, Tabery writes.

Zeman knows well what investigative journalists can do: without them, most of the scandals related to Zeman's government would have been forgotten. He is also well aware that sooner or later the press may focus on him due to his present political style, Tabery says.

He notes that Zeman seemed briefly stunned when journalists from the Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) daily played a recording of an old phone call between legendary mafioso Frantisek Mrazek and Zeman's former chief aide Miroslav Slouf during a debate within the presidential campaign two months ago.

The new president Zeman knows that independent journalists will go on checking his work. He preventively attacked them in order to be able to tell the following story later on: you can see the journalists taking revenge on me for my brave criticism of media, Tabery writes.

Zeman will have a lot of allies in this strategy, he says, referring to the fact that Zeman's attack on media was applauded by those present to the inauguration ceremony.

In general, the idea that action should be taken against media is winning more supporters in Czech society, Tabery writes.