Czech press survey - February 9

People´s confidence in politics stands above all the complaints over the disadvantages and complications the direct election implies from the viewpoint of the constitution and political management, Honzejk writes.

After many years of politicians´ promises, a rejection of the direct election would be another "last straw" for dissatisfied citizens, he says.

The direct election will encourage more people to take part in politics and soften their justified feeling of estrangement from those in power, Honzejk writes.

The objections against it are unconvincing. President Vaclav Klaus´s fear that a direct election might result in voters seeking a super star is unnecessary. Nowhere in the world a showbusiness celebrity has ever been elected president, Honzejk continues.

Moreover, Czech voters have certainly drawn a lesson from having elected [the Public Affairs (VV), a party of former popular TV reporter] Radek John [to parliament], Honzejk writes, alluding to the VV´s ailing voter preferences and far-from-high popularity of its representatives.

If an "anti-candidate" for a Constitutional Court (US) judge were looked for, Jan Svacek is a prototype to be labelled this way, Jiri Leschtina writes elsewhere in Hospodarske noviny.

He reacts to the upper house´s rejection of Svacek´s candidacy for a US judge, submitted to it by President Vaclav Klaus.

The problem is not only that Svacek, now head of the Prague City Court, joined the Communist Party (KSC) in June 1989 and that he recently told lies on television when he asserted that he had only been a candidate for KSC entry, Leschtina writes.

The most crucial aspect of Svacek is his previous reaction to the US´s decision that the public should have information about judges´ past. At the time, senator Martin Mejstrik asked Svacek who of the City Court judges had been a communist party member in the past. Svacek declined to answer, citing the information´s sensitive character as an argument, Leschtina writes.

In the past days, therefore, Svacek was a candidate for a US judge who disdained the US´s verdicts, Leschtina adds.

"From Klaus´s point of view, Svacek may have been an optimal cuckoo´s egg. The senators did well crushing it underfoot," Leschtina says in an allusion to Klaus´s tense approach to the US and his criticism of "the rule of judges."

Alena Hanakova (TOP 09), the new culture minister, unfortunately played into the hands of the church restitution´s opponents by her totally incompetent appearance in a TV debate on Tuesday, Zbynek Petracek writes in Lidove noviny.

Although culture minister is the cabinet member responsible for church-related issues and has submitted the closely-watched bill on the return of confiscated property to churches, Hanakova was incapable of highlighting and defending the bill and gaining the audience´s support for it, Petracek writes.

Totally unprepared for the discussion, Hanakova was incapable of parrying the abundant and well-prepared arguments tabled by her opponent and the bill´s critic, opposition Social Democrat (CSSD) MP and shadow interior minister Jeronym Tejc, Petracek writes.

The planned state-church property settlement is a moral step taken by the government but also the biggest property transfer since the coupon privatisation of the early 1990s. It is being made in a period of ongoing budget cuts and austerity measures, Petracek points out.

How is it possible that the bill´s submitter is incapable of defending it convincingly? The government should do something about it, Petracek writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz