Politico: Czech president under fire for skipping Prague Spring commemoration

Ivan Bartoš, the head of the Pirate Party, said he is not surprised by the president’s “sad” announcement considering his political worldview, a reference to Zeman’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zeman has repeatedly defended Putin against criticism from the West, calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia and even denying that Moscow has deployed soldiers in Ukraine. [...]

The tweet inspired a Czech political activist, Robin Suchánek, to lobby public broadcaster Česká televize to show a commemorative speech by Slovakia’s president, Andrej Kiska, which is being shown on Slovak television.

The broadcaster agreed. As a result, the major Czech event commemorating the 1968 invasion will be a speech by a foreign head of state, which will almost certainly be regarded as a black mark against Zeman’s statesmanship. [...]

The head of the Czech Communist Party, Vojtěch Filip, made few friends in the Czech Republic, for himself or Babiš, when he told the Guardian this month that Russia bears no responsibility for the invasion because the Soviet leader who ordered it, Leonid Brezhnev, was Ukrainian and “the major force of the invading armies were Ukrainian.”

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Politico: Czech parliament confirms Babiš minority government

The coalition nearly fell apart last month when President Miloš Zeman rejected the Social Democrats’ choice for foreign minister, Miroslav Poche, because of his support of migrant quotas. Social Democratic chairman Jan Hamáček, who is also interior minister, will temporarily fill the post. [...]

On the other hand, said Pehe, it could be difficult to topple the ANO-led government because the opposition is not united. “If the Social Democrats leave the coalition, Zeman has sway over the [right-wing extremist Freedom and Direct Democracy party] and the Communists and could convince them that supporting the government is in their best interest because they could lose their influential parliamentary positions agreed with Babiš,” he said. [...]

Not everyone is happy about the coalition deal. Putting the Communists into a position of influence for the first time since 1989, when the Velvet Revolution put an end to 40 years of Communist Party rule, has sparked public protests in the Czech capital as well as political resentment. [...]

The government is also likely to feel heat from the Catholic Church, because one of the Communists’ demands in exchange for supporting the government was a tax on property confiscated by the Communist regime and restituted after the revolution, including churches.

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Slate: The Czech Trump

Appearances, however, have a pesky tendency to deceive. Despite the immense progress their country has made, the mood among most Czechs is increasingly bitter. Though the country is affluent, they are convinced that the political establishment has failed them. Though most of the foreigners you see in the streets of Prague are here to spend money on beer, souvenirs, and museum tickets, Czechs are intensely preoccupied with the supposed threat posed by migrants and terrorists. And though the country’s political class has, on the whole, served it reasonably well, voters are now lending their support to a larger-than-life billionaire who promises to smash the system.  [...]

YES is not the only noxious movement that is doing well. There is also the right-wing extremist SPD, the left-wing extremist KSCM, and the populist Pirate Party. If you add up the vote of all these anti-establishment parties, forces that are deeply critical of representative democracy are likely to win an overall majority in the Czech Republic. This means that Babiš can choose from a wide variety of possible coalition partners that might not be too fussy if he tried to dismantle parts of the democratic system—as he almost certainly would, if only to escape the corruption charges that are hanging over his head.

If Babiš does become prime minister, he could change the country in fundamental ways. Unlike proto-populists like Vaclav Klaus, a euroskeptic conservative who once held the country’s presidency, a largely ceremonial post, Babiš is highly hostile to independent institutions in Prague as well as Brussels. And unlike populists who came to power with a plurality of the vote in other countries, his ability to influence the political slant of the main state broadcaster will, in conjunction with his private holdings, give him a near-monopoly over the country’s mass media. Though Babiš would undoubtedly face determined opposition from large segments of the population, it may prove rather more difficult to check his thirst for power than observers enthralled by Prague’s chic cafes believe.

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