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Privatization of Czech Politics and its "Fight Against Corruption"

3. 6. 2010 / Karel Dolejší

Cardiff University's Law Professor Jiří Přibáň gave an interview to daily Právo, which was published under the title "In these elections we may get the definitive privatization of politics by the private sector. What is happening after these elections, just in front of our eyes, is that the Czech Republic is changing into a smaller copy of Boris Yeltsin's Russia, which was controlled by business oligarchs, confirming practically everything Přibáň said. After the recent news of how Kalousek's friend, armament king Háva, or about what magnates Bárta and Soukup expect from their privatized politicians, the public was told that billionaire Bakala dedicated 28 million Czech crowns to center right parties ODS, TOP 09 and populist party VV.

A Czech version of this article is in CLICK HERE

Only "small fish" buy parliamentarians one at a time; the bigger shots go and get a whole party, whereas those in the first league of business get three at once. That practice certainly means influence on the running of public affairs, even though it is naturally possible to endlessly dust the old ideological phrase that everyone is equal under the Law and that every vote has the same weight.

One of the foolest moves that can be done in this kind of situations is to incite the public's anger against some small fish -- just as in the 1970's Husák's propaganda style, which channeled people's wrath and pretended that the bad living conditions were not a general and all pervading character.

"Before anything else, politicians must show that they respect certain rules and that they will not use their power for their own personal objectives", Přibáň answered to Právo's question about what is the way out of this current dissatisfaction with politics.

I agree. In my opinion we should finally organize the whole thing and make every politician, in the name of increasing transparency, wear a visible label, in which it would be written, whether he or she belongs to the clan of Bakala, Bárta, Soukup, Kočka, Chodorkovský, Hekmatjár or Aidid...

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Obsah vydání | Pondělí 2.8. 2010