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LN: Economists not joining Czech parties over their populism

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Prague, March 2 (CTK) – Czech political parties are trying to win over economic experts before the general election, but top economists are reluctant to join politics because they fear becoming contaminated with populism, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday.
It writes that the Czech Republic, a part of Czechoslovakia until 1992, has battled a lack of economists since the fall of the previous regime in late 1989, when it was learning democracy after 40 years of the totalitarian regime.
One of the reasons why the Civic Forum (OF), the major force behind the fall of communism, agreed to a dialogue with the Communists was that it lacked economists who would manage the transformation without people connected with the previous regime.
One of them was Vladimir Dlouhy, a Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC) member for 11 years. He was a post-communist economy minister. Now, he is president of the Chamber of Commerce.
Jan Mladek (Social Democrats, CSSD), industry and trade minister until the end of February, also a former KSC member, stayed in the government even though Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka showed dissatisfaction with him from the spring of 2015 because of a lack of people who could replace him, LN writes.
It writes that the junior government Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) have started to intensively seek a trustworthy expert who would be capable of “selling” their economic plans before the October general election.
ANO chairman Andrej Babis is naturally connected with economic themes because he is finance minister and that is why he has a logical mandate to comment on the national economy.
The international magazine GlobalMarkets named him the best finance minister of the developing European countries last year.
In June, the party will hold a conference to be attended by foreign colleagues who are to help the party better formulate the economic part of their programme.
The centre-right parties’ situation is better. The opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) have economic expert Jan Skopecek. When he studied Economics University in Prague, he listened to the lectures given by Vaclav Klaus, former Czech prime minister and president, a former ODS member and its chairman.
The rightist opposition TOP 09 has former finance minister Miroslav Kalousek at its head. He has been named one of the most trustworthy finance ministers in the EU. In addition, it can turn to its MEP and former CNB central bank head Ludek Niedermayer.
The Communists’ (KSCM) economic expert is Jiri Dolejs, the sole representative of the reform wing in the party leadership. He worked with the Forecasting Institute after graduation before the fall of the communist regime together with Klaus and incumbent President Milos Zeman, LN writes.
Frantisek Bostl, chief economist of Chytry Honza company, told LN that the lack of economists in politics is logical.
“Politics is not about reason, but about publicity. Politicians do not aim at people doing well, but at electing them again,” Bostl said.
“Economics is not a populist sphere, it is about numbers. An economist cannot address voters with incorrect numbers. That is why we do not see too many economists in politics. Economics and politics are not compatible,” Bostl said.

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