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How I was mistaken about Zeman's party

13. 7. 2010 / Miloslav Štěrba

Zeman's party emerged from the situation, when it could have become a rational option for the Social Democratic party, in case their leader Jiří Paroubek became, after the general elections, prime minister. His personality flaws (hyperbolized by the media) drove away social democratic voters towards other parties or made many of them not go vote at all. And the Left in this country needs to expand its election potential.

The short life of SPOZ has been marked in the Zlín region with all kinds of childish mistakes. Among them I highlight mainly the shameless political games that were played. While in other regions the choosing of local nominations to the parliament elections had the participation of 60 to 80 delegates, in Zlín the so-called party "whales" brought 265 voting ballots to the conference. The list with the names of the participants, with the confirmation of their presence, were lost, just in case... In the end, the person elected was later recalled (by whom?) in a rather suspicious way, and it was decided (by whom?) that his substitute would be 23-year-old mayor from Slavkov (the youngest mayor in the EU), known for his participation on Jan Kraus` TV show "Uvolněte se, prosím".

One of Miloš Zeman's mistakes was to bet on Slušovice. But SPOZ ended up getting as a the leader in that place only a local businessman and on third place in the voting list they put his secretary...

When it comes to the current state of the SPOZ in the Zlín region, the fact that from 14 local organizations of the party, established during the members` conference in January, until the end of June 11 have not organized even one more meeting. (That, I quote according to the official bulletin from SPOZ.)

However, two other "virtual" organizations have emerged in the region. And they started to dictate conditions about the decision over the candidates to the local elections, threatening to create a fourth organization if their requests were not to be fulfilled. I refused to accept those practices and thanks to all this that I have exposed, I decided to end my membership to SPOZ.

. At the position of president of the local organization in the Zlín region I signed the so-called Zlín Challenge, which defined as its goal to substitute the current big coalition between the Social Democrats, the center right Civic Democrats and the Christian Democrats in the local elections. But after my experience with the latest developments inside SPOZ, I hereby distance myself from that signature. In the document, we promised citizens of Zlín "candidates with credibility, the support of democracy and the widest possible transparency. Just that, now, what can that party bring the region?

The election results and the exit from the party by its leader Miloš Zeman gave SPOZ a death certificate. And I was not successful with the idea of disbanding the party caucus and to distribute whatever funds we have and will still get in the future to charity.

If voters will use their preferential votes, I would advise they vote for the Social Democrats in the local elections. Even though I have been repeatedly expelled from the local and regional caucuses. I at the time could not accept the fact that Miloš Melčák was part of the top local Social Democratic organizations. As a pretext for my expulsion even my article criticizing the invitation of Paroubek to the Zlín Town Hall. But the democratic basis of the party was proven when the Central Control Commission of ČSSD disapprove the expulsion.

Motto or P.S. -- from Romain Rolland: "A society is not threatened by the corruption of those who are bad, but from the silence of those who are indifferent"

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