Prague, April 10 (CTK) – Otto Chaloupka, a former deputy for the Public Affairs (VV) party who previously received a suspended sentence for unacceptable comments on Romanies will run for president in the early 2018 direct election, he wrote on his website today.
He wrote he wants to seek presidency for “dignity to return to Prague Castle and for people to regain confidence in the country’s leadership.”
“It is not my goal to use cheap topics to manipulate crowds, seek and misuse the issues that are popular just now, tell lies to people and tell them things that I do not mean sincerely only in order to be liked by as many of them as possible,” Chaloupka wrote.
Chaloupka, 56, became a deputy in the mid-2010 when the VV entered parliament for the first and so far the last time.
At the end of his mandate, he established a party of his own, the Republic, which failed in the Senate and the EU elections.
He was the Republic’s chairman and later a deputy chairman, but he left the party last year in order to run in elections as an independent candidate.
In the past, Chaloupka drew attention in connection with a constitutional complaint challenging the church restitution, and his trial over his lash out at the Romany minority.
Three years ago, a court imposed a six-month suspended sentence on him for his reaction to an attack by a group of Romanies on a married couple in Duchcov, north Bohemia. Chaloupka unsuccessfully challenged the verdict at the Constitutional Court (US).
Before, still in his capacity as a deputy, Chaloupka criticised a Romany leader’s effort to play down the Duchcov incident.
“People are on the brink [of a violent reaction]. If another one or two such Gypsy provocations follow, a mess will burst out. If so, not even heavily armed police can save them [Romanies],” Chaloupka wrote at the time in reaction to the Romany leader’s words.
