Large protests in Prague against the new mayor and Bohuslav Svoboda against the alliance between oDS and CSSD
Prague is par excellence, the city of abrupt removal from office, but it was still quite unusual to see how the new mayor – Bohuslav Svoboda, gynecologist by profession and debutant politician with the civic Democratic party (Ods) – risked ending up in this way, exactly on the day of his nomination.
The crowd which gathered to contest him, despite the cold mid-November weather, was so angry, that concern was raised of a possible ousting – and not merely from a metaphorical point of view. At the beginning, the protesters gathered in front of the council palace, but then invaded the council chamber and started yelling all sorts of epithets towards the new council representatives and newly appointed mayor. In an overcrowded council hall, the angry protesters really let loose.
To trigger the protest was the alliance “the insane mix” between the Ods conservatives and the Social Democrats of the Cssd for the city government. “It is a criminal agreement, between two parties who have clearly lost the elections – said a few contesters – aimed at placing their hands onto the rich contract work cake, connected with the massive amount of public works, which the council will be handling in the next few years”.
The Capital is waiting for the implementation of a series of projects – from the development of new residential areas, to the completion of the city-bypass, including the construction of a fourth underground line –which foresee a budget of tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of crowns. Apart from these mega projects, Prague is a city with an annual budget that is normally higher than that of the Ministry for Defense. Therefore, at stake lies very high self-interest, perhaps even unmentionable interests for anybody to risk being kept out from the city’s administration.
The chosen candidate for the position of mayor besides being a 66 year old luminary of medicine, head physician and president of the Medical Association, has the reputation of being an honest person, with no skeletons in the closet. An integrity that was in any case, not sufficient to dissuade the protesters. Against Svoboda lies the suspicion that he is the classic “useful idiot”, a sort of puppet, that a number of political old foxes inside the Prague council have tried to exploit to calm public opinion – but with no avail.
The new mayor has taken the place of Pavel Bem (Ods), a character who, in the last few years, has often been suspected of sustaining controversial contract work and favoring influential self-interest groups and controversial business characters.
Furthermore, Svoboda became mayor also thanks to the alliance with the Prague Social Democrats, who in the previous administration distinguished themselves for the “very soft” opposition afforded to the Ods city council. A favorable treatment – according to opponents – thanks to which, some managers of the Prague Cssd have had the possibility, in the last few years, to place themselves strategically inside the coveted and well paid board of directors of the Prague council companies.
The agreement between the Ods and the Cssd, besides being politically not very conceivable, has excluded from the game Zdenek Tuma – the mayor candidate with the highest votes (with more than 30% of preferences), the moral winner of the past elections and representative of the Top 09 conservative party – which, coincidentally, had based most of the electoral campaign on fighting corruption and afford transparency to council administration. A candiditate who has achieved almost nothing, despite the fact that he has put into the field all the credibility, built up in ten years as head and governor of the national Czech Bank.
As a favorite, since the very beginning of his candidature, after the landslide of votes in his favor, nothing seemed to be in the way to stop him from the office of mayor.
The first doubts arose at the beginning of the negotiations for the formation of the city council with their cousins, the liberals of the Ods. Negotiations that went on for weeks, with Tuma remaining in the initial position. “I will accept this alliance and be mayor, only if a certain number of personalities from the Ods, who had their fingers in the pie with the previous city council, decide to pull out.
Obviously, an unacceptable request for some big shots from the town’s Ods, who pressed and succeeded in achieving an alternative alliance with the Social Democrats.
A solution that, according to the polls, has not won wide popular consensus. The citizens of Prague, with an absolute majority (72%, according to a survey by Sanep) are not satisfied with the Bohuslav Svoboda choice . 78% express absolute trust in the coalition between the Ods and the Cssd.
Against this coalition a petition was also made (“Petice proti koalici ODS a ČSSD v Praze”) which, in just over a few days, has gained the support of twenty thousand citizens. Among the signatories, even a number of intellectuals and personalities of Czech culture, such as the philosopher and priest Tomas Halik, the director Jiri Menzel, the actor Zdenek Sverak and even Vaclav Havel. The ex president, hero of the Velvet Revolution, had already expressed his political opinion on the political situation of the Prague council just a few weeks before the elections, when he had a giant poster placed on top of the last floor of a place in Holesovice near Prague, in a very visible position, with the wording “I will not vote for any crooks, mafiosi, or villains, nor for gambling dens or brothels!”.
Even president Václav Klaus did not fail to express his view on the Prague council political situation and the battle for the chair of first citizen. He did so on the one hand, by praising with lots of adjectives, the management of the previous mayor Pavel Bém and, on the other hand, by blessing the accord between the Ods and the Čssd for the government of the city. The capital, however, is considered a political feud of the Head of State. It has been said for some time now, that Klaus is so powerful and influential in Prague, that even the presidential tennis racket itself would be able to win the elections.
By Giovanni Usai