Czech press survey - January 27

One can agree with the joint statements Klaus and Zeman, former leaders of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the Social Democratic Party (CSSD), made after their private talks, Petr Honzejk writes in Hospodarske noviny.

Klaus and Zeman correctly call for a change of the Czech election system so that it might produce strong governments that would be able to push through their visions instead of seeking ways of winning over individual votes in the lower house of parliament to achieve a majority, Honzejk writes.

One can support Zeman and Klaus´s conclusion that current Czech politics is empty and that it has been reduced to a distribution of influential posts, Honzejk says.

But there is one big problem related to these apparently correct statements and conclusions: the personalities of those who uttered them, Honzejk points out.

Twelve years ago it were exactly Klaus and Zeman who made an opposition agreement under which the ODS tolerated the government of the CSSD. In short, their deal had only one reason: to distribute influence and seats, Honzejk writes in Hospodarske noviny.

Some claim that Klaus met Zeman as part of a deal the two made before the latest president election organised in early 2008 but this is probably not the case, Daniel Kaiser writes in Lidove noviny.

Before the 2008 elections. Zeman´s aide and grey eminence Miroslav Slouf secretly met Jiri Weigl, head of Klaus´s presidential office. Some speculate that they made a deal: Zeman will use his influence to help Klaus be re-elected president and Klaus will support Zeman as his possible successor in the post of president in 2013.

However, the Klaus-Zeman meeting and subsequent press conference may be interpreted in a different way: Klaus tried to show that Zeman, unlike current political leaders Mirek Topolanek (ODS) and Jiri Paroubek (CSSD), is a prominent statesman, Kaiser writes.

The meeting was probably organised to make an impression that two extraordinary personalities who have no match in Czech politics at present had talks. It seems it at least partly served this purpose, Kaiser indicates.

President Klaus met retired politician Zeman, yet if things developed in a slightly different manner it could have been the other way round, with president Zeman inviting pensioner Klaus to the Prague Castle, Martin Komarek writes in Mlada fronta Dnes.

Klaus was elected president seven years ago for the first time also because a part of the CSSD rebelled against Zeman and did not want him to become president, Komarek recalls.

The Klaus-Zeman meeting would have the same outcome if the two men who swap their roles. They would remember good old times when Czech politics was much better than now because they controlled it, Komarek says.

But the present political situation with its hypocrisy and greed is a legacy of the opposition agreement that Klaus and Zeman made in 1998.

Topolanek and Paroubek definitely have many bad qualities, the ODS and the CSSD have not made a pact under them, however, Komarek notes.

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz