Prague, Jan 4 (CTK) – Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka plays the president´s moderating role, while President Milos Zeman lives in the role of a national leader and this seemingly disastrous combination is actually the most fortunate for the Czech Republic, Petr Fischer writes in Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.
However, Sobotka´s “calm democratic force” can pay off the country paradoxically only because the Deputy PM, Finance Minister and ANO leader Andrej Babis has surprisingly tamed his avidity for power so far, Fischer points out.
He says there is hardly any difference between Zeman and Sobotka in terms of the programme. Zeman would surely sign the priorities that Sobotka and his coalition government want to push through, such as the continuing economic growth, the electronic registry of sales, property statements, the drawing of EU funds and a rise in the minimum wage.
Sobotka, leader of the Social Democrats (CSSD), has learnt his economic and social way of thinking from Zeman, former CSSD leader and PM in 1998-2002. They can agree on economic and social matters, but differ on their power interests and consequently, on the relation to democracy, which is connected with their different political styles, Fischer says.
While Sobotka is a moderate type trying to calm down and connect people, Zeman is a hard, almost ruthless leader who plays solo in his presidency. With the aid of his supporters, Zeman is promoting the idea of being the natural voice of people or of the nation as it is modern to say now, Fischer adds.
In other words, he says, there is a certain unnatural twist in the Czech political environment. The president, who is not an executive engine according to the constitution, is a charismatic and zealous leader, populist in both positive and negative sense of the word, while the executive engine, which should be the prime minister, is a consensual and unemotional figure willing to reach a compromise.
Yet this combination apparently suits the country. The moderate prime minister is suitable in the coalition government, comprised of his CSSD, ANO and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), but he should insist more on the fulfilment of its programme from time to time.
Moreover, Sobotka has an obvious advantage in relation to Zeman, who does not consider him a rival at all. Zeman does not take his revenge for the criticism that does not actually exist, he does not challenge the government policy and he almost does not influence it either.
“He only usurps an emotional influence on international relations and even in this area Sobotka is able to shout so quietly that Zeman may hear it, but it does not hurt him a bit,” Fischer writes.
A major part of the Czech society is waiting for such words so eagerly that even Sobotka´s inconspicuous critical remarks on the president´s exaggerated patriotism start playing the role of a political gesture, though neither he nor Zeman have noticed it yet, Fischer adds.
However, the next New Year´s luncheon might not be so cosy since it will take place one year ahead of the presidential election, Zeman will keep promoting his anti-Islam programme and Sobotka will hardly manage to resist it, Fischer says.
Sobotka need not fear anything unless Babis joins Zeman´s more and more xenophobic and absolutist rhetoric. Though Zeman supported Babis as a potential presidential candidate in the media, Babis knows that if he agreed with Zeman too much, it could harm his party.
However, if Babis succumbs to the syndrome of the president´s megalomania, Sobotka´s moderate decency will lose its charm all of a sudden, Fischer notes.
“This is why we should wish at the beginning of the new year that the possibly natural power attractiveness of Babis-Zeman does not expand, and consequently, that Sobotka does not have to prove his ability to turn from a moderating, calm person who likes compromise into a hard and resolute fighter for democracy,” Fischer writes.
Sobotka may deserve such a chance of “becoming a Politician,” but there is no point in gambling with the fate of the nation and people if it works so well in the Sobotka-Babis-Zeman trio, Fischer concludes in HN.
