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Zeman: ČSSD dissociates itself from its voters

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Lany, Central Bohemia, Feb 14 (CTK) – The senior government Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) has dissociated itself from its natural voters, mainly in the issue of the migrant crisis, President Milos Zeman said in a radio interview on Sunday.

CSSD chairman and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka might end up isolated in the EU, maximally side by side with Angela Merkel, Zeman said in the Presidential Pressclub programme on Frekvence 1 radio station.

The CSSD would need to have at its helm a person who “would prepare the country for defence against the migrant wave,” which might come this year, Zeman said

He admitted that this might be even its current leader Sobotka if the changed his stance on the solution to the migrant crisis.

“Otherwise, he faces the threat of remaining rather lonely in the European Union, side by side with Angela Merkel, and maybe not even that,” Zeman said.

Merkel takes an accommodating stance on refugees and she has opened the German border to them.

The current stabilisation of the CSSD is caused by support of activists who support refugees, but it is destabilised by losing its original voters, Zeman said.

Zeman also reiterated in live radios broadcast a statement on him released by activist Tomasz Peszynski, who organised demonstrations in support of Sobotka in late January, on a social network.

“The president is a fucking fascist swine and I will get plastered when he kicks the bucket,” Zeman said, citing Peszynski.

If Sobotka wins support of people with such vocabulary, then something may be wrong, he added.

Government spokesman Martin Ayrer told CTK that the prime minister would not comment on President Zeman’s statements.

Vulgar expressions did not sound in Zeman’s live radio programme for the first time. He repeatedly used vulgar words during the official Talks from Lany on the public broadcaster Czech Radio (CRo), speaking about the Russian Pussy Riot band and the civil service law.

He did not apologise for it and the CRo then decided to broadcast the interviews with him from a recording. As Zeman expressed disagreement with this, the interviews started to be broadcast by the private Frekvence 1 radio station instead.

Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek justified Zeman’s use of a coarse words on Sunday by the fact that he had only quoted a statement by the prime minister’s supporter.”

Zeman followed up his verbal clashes with Sobotka that started last year and culminated with Sobotka’s criticism of Zeman giving a speech next to the Bloc against Islam chairman Martin Konvicka on the stage in Prague-Albertov on November 17, national holiday marking the students’ fight for freedom and democracy in 1939 and 1989.

Sobotka said the president should not appear at an event of a xenophobic sect spreading hatred.

“We got along quite well with PM Sobotka for two years until the migrant crisis erupted and our opinions dramatically differed. He himself called it a fundamental conflict of values and he is right,” Zeman said.

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