Prague, Nov 30 (CTK) – Miroslav Kalousek is not only a bad successor to Karel Schwarzenberg, but he is an opposite of many things the latter represents, and only time will show whether the ideas and ways of TOP 09´s first head took root in the party, Erik Tabery writes in weekly Respekt out Monday.
He is commenting on the decision of Schwarzenberg, who will turn 78 in early December, to leave as the opposition conservative TOP 09 party and his replacement by Miroslav Kalousek, who founded the party in 2009 and who turns 55 in early December, at the weekend.
Tabery writes that Schwarzenberg is an honourable man that cannot be said about everyone who has worked politically for dozens of years.
However, Schwarzenberg is not leaving politics entirely. He has become TOP 09´s honorary chairman and he still wants to run in the general election in 2017, Tabery writes.
Yet, Schwarzenberg´s influence on politics has been weakening since the presidential election in 2013, in which he lost to Milos Zeman.
Schwarzenberg, fomer foreign minister, is an entirely exceptional phenomenon. A nobleman, rich, having dual citizenship (Czech and Swiss), a bohemian, who speaks old Czech with a characteristic speech impediment, a world-famous personality, who likes to tell jokes and use bons mots and who falls asleep wherever possible, Tabery writes.
Schwarzenberg, who went to live in Austria with his family after the communists seized power in former Czechoslovakia in 1948 and returned home after the former regime was toppled in end-1989, was head of the office of Vaclav Havel when he was Czechoslovak president, Tabery writes.
This attitude may even predetermine his TOP 09´s existence difficulties. Schwarzenberg was not educating new personalities and that is why the party´s leadership is too narrow, Tabery writes.
He writes that it is humanly comprehensible that he wants “to repay the debt” to Kalousek with whom he founded the party and hand him over not only the party leadership, but also influence on what is going on within the party. This will not generate anything good, however, Tabery adds.
