Prague, Feb 15 (CTK) – Voter preferences’ polls are not practically changing, repeatedly showing that the Czech rightist opposition is unable to rise again because it lacks courage for change, the same as the senior government Social Democrats (CSSD), Jaroslav Plesl writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD).
He writes that the CSSD!s problem number one is its chairman and prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who is a patient and consensual politician, but he only repeats what his advisers, and mainly his close friend Radek Pokorny, tell him.
The lawyer and lobbyist Pokorny has a fundamental influence on Sobotka. Pokorny’s opinions are progressively on the left, which has brought the CSSD from the top of politics down to the level of marginal parties. They stand closest to the Green Party, which is not represented in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, Plesl writes.
He writes that Sobotka rewarded some people for their services to the party with influence within the Hate Free Culture campaign, which pushed the party into the trap of political correctness and fashionable themes, such as feminism or the struggle against ideologically subversive centers of all kind, particularly the Russian, Plesl writes.
He writes that voters are not interested in these things at all, which has caused a yawning gap between the voter preferences of Finance Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO movement and the CSSD.
It matter to Pokorny, and maybe to Sobotka as well, how the CSSD’s policy is accepted in NGOS, what the “marginal” weekly Respekt writes about it and whether it will be praised by the Berlin chancellery, Plesl writes.
He writes that until this changes, the CSSD cannot expect its voter preferences to increase.
The rightist opposition Civic Democrats (ODS), once a government party whose voter preferences dramatically dropped after the fall of Petr Necas’s (ODS) government in 2013, has a tedious leader, Petr Fiala, but it would need someone who has clear ideas and who can speak to people, Plesl writes.
He writes that these demands are only fulfilled by Vaclav Klaus Jr, son of former ODS chairman and president. But even he needs a team, which can comprise neither Martin Kupka nor Alexandra Udzenija, but rather former foreign and European affairs minister Alexandr Vondra, who has surprisingly reasonable foreign political opinions now.
An ideal choice would be someone like Petr Bystron, chairman of the Bavarian Alternative for Germany, Plesl writes.
He writes that the ODS is lucky in that the position of the other rightist opposition and former government party, TOP 09, is even worse.
Unless its chairman Miroslav Kalousek attempts to persuade former ODS member Jiri Pospisil, now MEP for TOP 09, to lead the party, he can only hope that the emerging coalition of the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and Mayors and Independents (STAN) enters the Chamber of Deputies, Plesl writes.
However, the KDU-CSL has been proceeding well and the current period is on its side, Plesl writes.
The Christian Democrats and STAN will not get together the dreamt-of 15 percent of the vote, but if they tabled the theme of Christian values, they could add some more percentage points at a time of intensive debates about Islam, Plesl writes.
But this would require keeping Culture Minister Daniel Herman in Prague only. In addition, the traditional Christian Democrat voters must not notice how empty the words said by STAN head Petr Gazdik are, Plesl writes.
The ANO movement has long headed public opinion polls, it has the best marketing, but it also has one big problem – foreign policy, Plesl writes.
He writes that that voters have not yet noticed what ANO MEPS say in the European Parliament, but as soon as they do so, they will be surprised to see how deeply the opinions of Babis differ from those of European Parliament Vice-President Pavel Telicka, for instance. This is true of the opinions of the EU, U.S. President Donald Trump and migration, Plesl writes.
If Czech political parties want to improve their ratings, they will have to act accordingly, for which they must find courage first of all, Plesl writes.
