Czech press survey - February 9

Two other Czech leftist parties are only negligible, so there only remains the Party of Citizens´ Rights of Milos Zeman (SPOZ), a unique entity in Europe that is not going to delete the name of the president-elect from its name, Mitrofanov writes.

The SPOZ could have motifs to merge with the CSSD. It would gain access to the use of the valuable mark, CSSD, Mitrofanov writes.

However, the party claims that it is not considering merging with the CSSD, but CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka and his group within the CSSD do not believe this, Mitrofanov writes.

Now there is a pause. Another act may start after the CSSD´s congress in March, Mitrofanov writes.

A smoking president does not matter, Martina Riebauerova writes in Mlada fronta Dnes about president-elect Milos Zeman, who is an ardent smoker like former president Vaclav Havel or former ombudsman Otakar Motejl were, and yet this did not diminish their respect, but unscrupulousness or thickheadedness, particularly if pretended, matters strongly.

Former Havel´s spokesman and ethics expert Ladislav Spacek has said Zeman will be smoking at Prague Castle wherever he may please and that politicians will have to get used to the smoke, Riebauerova says.

She writes that it is surprising if such a stand is taken by the Prague Castle´s ethics guardian.

Why should the politicians tolerate the heavy smoking and why should they feel that they cannot decently criticise this? Riebauerova writes.

This requires nothing but self-confidence and a portion of healthy sovereignty that the future sovereign president will perhaps expect his visitors to display, Riebauerova writes and adds that she wants to believe that Zeman would respect it.

Zbynek Petracek writes in Lidove noviny that it does not matter what former Communist (KSCM) chairman Miroslav Grebenicek tells about student Jan Palach who self-immolated himself in January 1969 to awaken people from lethargy after the Soviet-led occupation in 1968, but it matters that this is said precisely by him.

Grebenicek, who is considered a representative of the Stalinist wing in the KSCM, said in the Chamber of Deputies on Friday that Palach did not set himself on fire in protest against the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC) and that he felt affection mainly for the reform communists.

Petracek asks what is bad about this and why Chamber of Deputies chairwoman Miroslava Nemcova, who must well remember the period, says Grebenicek is completely reversing facts.

She knowns well that Palach was not an anti-communist - just as a crushing majority of society, Petracek writes.

What matters is that the words about Palach were said by Grebenicek who entered the KSC in 1975 when, besides the Soviet occupation, he must have ritually approve the domestic "normalisation " [or return of communist hardlinens to power], that is precisely what Palach was rousing people against.

With his words, Grebenicek has ranked himself among those who have trampled on Palach´s warning about resignation, Petracek writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz