Prague, March 1 (CTK) – The times when the politicians of the Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS) were the ideological leaders of the country, who pulled the economic transformation and were pushing the country forward belong deep in the past, Petr Honzejk writes in daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.
He writes that political developments are rash and political parties also change rashly. The liberal left is replaced by bolshevik egalitarianism and rightist liberalism is turning into nationalist populism.
This naturally applies to the senior government Social Democrats (CSSD) and the rightist opposition ODS, both of which were the anchors of Czech politics until recently, Honzejk writes.
He writes that the change is vexatious, which is particularly true of the ODS. It is now a small party compared to the CSSD. The party may not be capable of balancing off its expedient aberrations bordering on extremism in the future.
Honzejk writes that the Prague ODS elected Vaclav Klaus Jr, son of former president and ODS chairman Vaclav Klaus, number three on its list of candidates for the October general election.
It is the same Klaus who in summer wrote that the Czech Republic should “disappear from the EU and to harshly control its border even at the cost of becoming poorer by one third,” Honzejk writes.
He writes that it is possible to persuade oneself that this is no problem because one Klaus does not make a scrape and that chairman Petr Fiala will manage the nationalist bubbling. But this is a mistake, Honzejk writes.
Vaclav Klaus Jr is also agitating against “green and gender totalitarianisms.” Does he know what a totalitarian regime is? He was 20 when the communist regime fell in 1989, so he could still remember it. Unfortunately, he probably does not, Honzejk writes.
Or, he remembers it and only pretends as if he did not because scaremongering functions in the present post-factual world despite any rationality, Honzejk writes.
He writes that smog is so strong that people cannot go out, women have much lower salaries than men, but Vaclav Klaus Jr says there is a green and a gender totalitarianism in this country, Honzejk writes.
Unlike in the past, the ODS now functions based on this pattern: “I will invent a problem, I will inflate it, then I will ritually dance around it for a while, I will cry horror, horror and I will rely on attracting as many people as possible who will be afraid with me,” Honzejk writes.
He writes that this is a political amusement park.
This can work, but only like Milos Zeman’s statement in the mid-1990s, when he led the CSSD. He said the members of the extremist Association for the Republic-Republican Party of Czechoslovakia of Miroslav Sladek are wild social democrats and so he invited extremists to the CSSD, Honzejk writes.
Now, the ODS analogically indicates that the members of Freedom and Direct Democracy of Tomio Okamura, which is a marginal party in parliament, and of the far right National Democracy of Adam B. Bartos, and followers of the anti-Islam activist, Martin Konvicka, are actually wild civic democrats and believes that it will score points with them, Honzejk writes.
It may, but it is a question of whether it is still a civic and democratic party, Honzejk writes.
