Czech press survey - March 14

Mitrofanov cites a recent CVVM opinion poll indicating that this dissatisfaction concerns more than three-fifths of Czech population, compared to a half of it one year ago.

In Russia, people´s mistrust in democracy became high already in the 1990s, he says.

According to the CVVM pollsters, the increased dissatisfaction is a result of low confidence in the government and the Chamber of Deputies and a falling trust in the president after the New Year amnesty, Mitrofanov recalls.

Like in Russia 20 years ago, people begin to believe democracy itself is to blame for unjust and questionable performances of individual governments, politicians and the president, Mitrofanov writes.

But when democracy was explained to Czechs after November 1989, one key point was missing: democracy is like playing a music instrument, one needs to learn it, he writes.

The post-socialist space is still influenced by the past conductors who did not want interprets but only an audience to whom they offered small certainties in exchange for passivity, Mitrofanov concludes.

Some reactions to a letter asking top Czech politicians to take a stance on President Milos Zeman´s inauguration address promising to fight a big part of media try to falsely interpret criticism of Zeman as limiting his freedom of speech, Martin Zverina writes in Lidove noviny.

These reactions prove that the letter initiated by political commentator Bohumil Dolezal is a topical issue. Some politicians seem to believe that questions must not be even asked, Zverina says.

MP Vitezslav Jandak (Social Democrats, CSSD) said he does not like the letter signed by a few noisy people. MP Jiri Paroubek (former CSSD, now National Socialists, NS-LEV 21) mocked it, too. Zeman himself said the letter attacks his own freedom of speech, Zverina recalls.

Senator Jaroslav Doubrava (former Communists, now Severocesi movement) believes Zeman is right because most media showed that they are not interested in freedom of speech, which has been proved by the fact that they supported Zeman´s rival Karel Schwarzenberg in the presidential election runoff, Zverina writes.

Those who did not support the current president probably do not deserve freedom of speech, he says.

The plan to turn the sCard from an electronic card for welfare benefit payment into a mere identification card is nonsense, Julie Hrstkova says in Hospodarske noviny.

An identification card is issued by the state and there is no need to involve a bank, Ceska sporitelna (CS), into it is not only pointless but apparently also against law, Hrstkova writes.

She says CS is not to blame for this - it only wanted to participate in the original sCard project that made sense from the point of view of banking business.

The fact that no other bank took part in the public tender probably shows that other banks were smart enough not to wish this suspicious partnership project with the state, Hrstkova writes.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz