Czech President Klaus was more negativist in second term-analysts

He said an analysis of 469 speeches Klaus, 71, made from 1995 to date showed that his speeches in the second election term (2008-2023) were more insistent and more emotional and two thirds of them sounded negatively.

Klaus´s second and last five-year presidential term expires on March 7. In the post-communist period he was also finance minister, prime minister and Chamber of Deputies chairman.

Klaus founded the current senior government Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and he was its chairman and later honorary chairman until 2008 when he left the ODS over disagreement with its leadership.

Gregor said speeches are one of few instruments with which the president can present his stands and influence the public opinion.

"In the first term, Vaclav Klaus held non-conflict stands with some exceptions while in the second term he became almost irreconcilable on some themes," Gregor said.

He said the change of behaviour may be connected with that he had to be moderate in the first term if he wanted to be re-elected.

The analysis showed that the biggest number of Klaus´s speeches, 135, focused on the European Union, followed by foreign policy (117) and the political situation in the Czech Republic (81). Two thirds of the speeches contained more themes.

Before Klaus became president, he spoke negatively about the EU in 44 percent of his speeches, in his first presidential term the percentage rose to 47 and in the second term to 72.5 percent.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz