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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Political Critique: Czechia after elections: Five more years of Zeman or what the hell went wrong?

The campaigns of both candidates (Miloš Zeman and Jiří Drahoš) ran on the following four issues: 1) Immigration, 2) Finances, 3) Health, 4) Foreign policy. A quick reality check reveals that all of those have bugger all to do with actual political conditions in the country. The health of the candidates was obvious ground for confrontation, but it is not like the fact Zeman is a shambling zombie pushed around the place by bodyguards, or that Drahoš wears non-dioptric glasses now because he is used to wearing them, is likely to affect the political discourse in the country in any way (apart from the possibility of judicious application of embalming fluid increasing the TV appeal of even more political have-beens). [...]

What Zeman’s so-called trade missions have brought is an increased interest in our country from Russia and China. This was manifest in a variety of entertaining ways, ranging from the Chinese offer to connect the country to the Black Sea by means of a river channel, laughed at by economists and ecologists alike, to suggestions of Russians expanding Czech nuclear power plants (screw the government’s plans for a project competition), to Very Important Investors touring local factories in order to make a valiant effort at smuggling samples out of the building in their expensive suit pockets. Oops. Whether the point of a President’s official visits to other countries is to facilitate deals for his shady buddies is a question everyone has to provide their own answer to – sadly, we already know Zeman’s.

And then there is the biggest non-issue of all: illegal immigration. The Czech Republic is extremely Islamophobic while having roughly 0.2% Muslims among its populace. Even the logical jump from immigration to Islam is fallacious since these are quite different topics – but the Czech public discourse makes no difference between them: immigration means Islam means terrorism (means burqas means rape means eating babies). This discourse has long been hailed, preached and legitimized by politicians who just could not resist banking on the political capital offered by having a such a public enemy around. And Zeman utilized it to the max. Naturally the campaign would be about immigration – he has worked long and hard on breathing a semblance of life into this construct. And it repaid him in spades – so who cares if racism becomes commonplace and thousands of people will suffer because of bad PR? There’s votes in hate.

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Politico: How (the European) Trump won a second term

The 73-year-old’s politics has invited obvious comparisons with his U.S. counterpart, although he has been on the international political scene far longer. After Trump’s election, he was an early invitee to the White House, being the only European head of state to back Trump as a candidate. “There are many politicians who admired Trump after the elections, when courage is cheap,” Zeman said last year. [...]

In the event though, Zeman ground out a win by hammering the anti-immigration playbook. And his victory was another demonstration of his consummate political skills and proof of the deep division in Czech society that he, more than anyone else, has created and exploited. [...]

Fortified by the win, he appears determined to continue his pugnacious style of governing, particularly his running battle with the media. At the victory celebration, he referred to journalists as “idiots,” and later, according to local media reports, several journalists were manhandled by his bodyguards, and one was physically assaulted. [...]

To win a second five-year term, Zeman had to shrug off questions about his health and accusations that Russia helped fund his election run and was behind a nasty smear campaign against Drahoš, falsely accusing him of pedophilia, collaboration with the former communist secret police and wanting to open Czech borders to mass migration. [...]

However, whether the allegations are true or not, the closeness of Zeman’s victory — 51.36 percent to 48.62 percent — against an opponent with no political experience, suggests that the president is vulnerable and could have been defeated by an opponent with more political savvy.

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