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How I was mistaken about Zeman's party -- part 2

19. 7. 2010 / Miloslav Štěrba

Zeman's party decided to invest on the young. So they chose 23 year-old Petr Vladovič to be the Zlín region party leader. The young man from the insignificant Slavkov county, in the foothills of the White Carpathians, had the doors to high politics opened by the fact that he appeared in the popular TV talk show from comedian Jan Kraus ("Uvolněte se, prosím"). Just that he was invited to the show as a curiosity: he was the youngest mayor in the whole European Union. That he used to work as an assistant to a center right member of parliament from ODS? No problem, definitely the right choice to be be leader of a leftist party!

A strategic move, so as to penetrate the enemy's barricade. It is gratifying to hear from a youngster social-democratic lessons on solidarity a... the need for direct elections for regional governors and for President.

His predecessor in the role of party leader for the Zlín region had a much shorter life. As an experienced businessman he didn't accept the opinion of the party leader, during the party congress, that we should defend the progressive taxation of better paid citizens. That was rather in accordance with his profession and social status. His vision was of a center left party, supportive of business endeavor, without that unnecessary social democratic garbage, without taking money from those more financially successful. With some exceptions, that first local party leader for SPOZ got support for his liberal/conservative objectives.

In the end, there was no discussion about the program. The announcement, by one local party organization, that they would ally with TOP 09 for the municipal elections was accepted without questions by the regional counties` committee. That TOP 09 is a right wing party, no problem... As far as it is not the Communist party... Only that the SPOZ statute, on paragraph 2, says: "the party is of leftist orientation, pro-Europe and supports the principles of social market economy").

Through this type of ideological bendedness one can catch a glimpse of how the Left or Right are understood these days. Why have program limited by ideology, when political novices see us all as being in a starting point, we then create a team and the decisive factor are the finances. What all can a party allow itself, where does it get funds for it and who decides about how to use that money? Those are the main themes for those SPOZ officials. From their own experience, they know well the methods used by advertisement, the need for easy slogans.

They thought it would be enough to print posters with Zeman and, next to him, glue the face of the local candidates.

That the list of candidates had no prominent names? With disarming naivete they claimed that everybody has to be a beginner once. This way the Zlín region's list of SPOZ candidates ended up with a shop manager, the head of a commercial company, two businessmen, one firm's general director, a sales person, a tax specialist, a consultant for sales deals, some CEO's secretary, a marketing and corporate designer, a municipal mayor, one self-employed person and four retired people. And that combination got 6 % of local votes. It was one of the most successful results for the SPOZ party in the whole country. If the people from SPOZ had worked with that kind of profession mix in their candidates` lists, we would have dozens more such "leftist" members of parliament.

But what stays without an answer is a question related to the name of the party. Whose rights such candidates would fight for? Do their respective professions influence their priorities?

Miloš Zeman with pleasure reminded us about Zlín's Tomáš Baťa, his approach to work, his position as creator of values. When I proposed to Zeman that we should follow up on the Baťa tradition, for example, by remembering that company's "Work songs" at the SPOZ congress, the flash in the former premier's eyes indicated how he turned me from a normal citizen with full rights into a four-legged being who'd better be made into a steak...

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