Political Critique: Czech Local Elections: a sharp turn to the right

Probably the sharpest, most explicit messages showed up in the northern parts of the country, namely the city of Most – a peripheral area devastated by heavy industry (and subsequent job loss when the coal mines closed) which suffers from a prolonged housing crisis caused by real estate brokers tied into local politics. Curiously enough, it is the party most intertwined with the poverty business that fans the flames driving proper the proper, good folk into a racist frenzy: the Mostians for Most Association (SMM) were openly advocating segregation, establishing locations excluded from housing social support and, yes, building “scum villages” to which they would move the “rabble”. As for determining who exactly the “rabble” is supposed to be, the procedure is not exactly clear but one can assume it will involve a color filter. [...]

SMM did not win the elections in Most, but they came third; enough to leave a mark on the city’s future (un-)social policy. Their campaign did, however, echo with that of the party which came fourth – the traditional, conservative Civic Democrats (ODS), a party that has been a determining factor in Czech politics since the nineties and has fallen on hard times with the advent of mass populism. Undeterred, they got the message – ODS has been promising Zero Tolerance To Foreigners (this particular slogan coming from Mladá Boleslav – a city whose economic lifeline happens to be foreign workers from the Škoda automobile factory) and scoring great successes with it; if there is an overall winner to this election, they are it. What the hell? [...]

The xenophobic SPD ended up with a disaster, with only 155 representatives across the whole country. Their leader, famously fearmongering fraudster Tomio Okamura, promptly amended his previous statement of expecting “hundreds of SPD representatives” to “I meant a three-figure sum”. His people were a lot less phlegmatic, though; “enjoy your immigrants”, tweeted a failed SPD candidate in Prague. And for all the horrible things to be said about the results in Brno, the openly neo-Nazi party Decent People flunked the election hard.

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Political Critique: No orphans allowed in Czechia

Czech anti-immigration sentiments got lifted up from the domain of quacks, wannabe Nazis and populists into actual policy when Andrej Babiš woke up one day and realized his party’s popularity dropped a couple percent; a situation very easily remedied by causing an international faux pas by telling Italy he will not accept a single immigrant (because look what they did to your country). His resolve has been tested for the last few weeks with a full-on media barrage regarding the proposed acceptance of fifty orphans from Syria – an issue on which he managed to change his firm opinion only about five or six times a week. [...]

And here is the thing: those fifty orphans could seriously help us there. The Czech Republic has mostly managed to avoid EU scrutiny due to Babiš playing chameleon and changing colors based on whether he was speaking to home or foreign audience. But it seems the chameleon is going senile and cannot shift its complexion as fast as it once could – and sometimes, like in Italy, the true colors shine through. Now, viewed from the outside, there is an opportunity to put his money where his mouth is and prove that he is dedicated to a common European cause. The only problem is that, back home, he has just announced zero tolerance for immigrants. What to do, what to say? [...]

Putting aside the rather distressing implication that a human life loses value with age (something the masterpiece of applied necromancy posing as our current President should get through its brain, whichever canopic jar that might be stowed away in), this first attack was deflected rather easily by pointing out that we’d have our choice of orphans to accept; no one was talking a specific group of children. This did not stop plenty of other parties to join the fun; the xenophobic SPD calling the initiative “pseudohumanistic cries of the neo-marxists” (given the rhetorical capabilities of the average SPD member, one can only assume a dictionary was heavily involved in the creative process behind that phrase) and a party called Czech Sovereignty (nope, never heard of them either) outright accused the orphans of being ISIS fighters – amazing foresight since no specific children were chosen.

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Jacobin Magazine: Zeman, Again

But this comparison only goes so far. Zeman is very much a political insider, a fixture in Czech politics since the Velvet Revolution. He participated in the anticommunist Civic Forum and joined the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly in 1990. He helped rebuild the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), which he joined in 1992, and he served as prime minister from 1998 to 2002. He ran for president in 2003, but Václav Klaus won thanks to divisions in the party. Zeman never fully forgave the leadership, and, in 2009, he founded the Party of Civic Rights, which has yet to win any seats in parliament. Nevertheless, Zeman returned to national politics with a bang in 2013, when he won the first directly elected presidential race. [...]

His public pronouncements, particularly on Islam and migration, echo those of the traditional far right, though he often uses even less varnished terms than Marine Le Pen or Alternative for Germany. Zeman has forged tight links with the organized right, most notably with Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), a virulently anti-Islam party that won twenty-two seats in November’s parliamentary election. [...]

Nevertheless, this election had the highest turnout since 1998, with 66.6 percent. On the one hand, the big numbers reflect citizens’ desire to rebalance politics following the shock of November’s parliamentary elections. On the other, it underlines the fact that the role of president occupies a disproportionate place in the Czech imagination. [...]

Some of this has merit: Zeman’s strongest support comes from smaller towns and rural areas — though he won Ostrava, the third-largest city in the country — and his voters tend to be older and less educated. But dividing society into enlightened Western subjects and post-communist dinosaurs blocks both a clear analysis of the country’s political situation and any hope of changing it. These categories do more to flatter Zeman’s opponents than to help understand what motivates his supporters.

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Al Jazeera: Europe far right hails Trump, slams EU, Islam, migrants

Far right leaders promised to build a new Europe without the EU, as they rallied against Islam and praised US President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policy at a meeting in Prague over the weekend. [...]

"We do like diversity but I like the Dutch to be Dutch, the Czechs to be Czech, I like the French to be French and I like the Italians to be Italians."

Wilders, meanwhile, rejected Islam as "totalitarian ideology" and warned that the continent would be overrun by Muslims. [...]

"In the regional sense, the post-communist countries are particularly fragile and have always been, with the arrival with the now perceived danger from foreigners and Muslims," Jan Culik, a lecturer in Czech studies at the University of Glasgow, told Al Jazeera. "They have very little immunity to xenophobia and now the Czech Republic and Poland are among the worst in this regard.

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Politico: Babiš in office in Prague, but not yet secure in power

As a result, ANO is 23 votes short of a majority in the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies. So Babiš — who denies the charges — will spend most of the holiday break trying to seduce party leaders and mavericks into supporting his administration when it faces its first vote of confidence in early January.

That will not be easy. This week, the center-right Civic Democrats, the second-strongest party in the chamber, and most of the other parties declared again that they would not support a minority government led by Babiš. And Tomio Okamura, the leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU SPD, which finished third in the voting, said his party would only support a government that would carry out its hardline program. [...]

“I don’t think Babiš wants to get the votes this time,” Pehe said. “The way he’s been putting together this government, without many discussions with the other parties, he is fully prepared not to pass the vote of confidence.” [...]

In addition, the prime minister may also be working on ways to ensure his immunity from prosecution — as a member of parliament — is not lifted. The last parliament lifted his immunity just weeks before the election. But Babiš now has immunity once again, as a member of the new parliament.

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