Spiegel's Roundup of the German Press on Zeman's Election

This link (in English!) does a very nice job of evaluating the Czech Presidential election. There are a few contradictions in the opinions (Is Zeman on the left, or is he simply an erratic populist?) but all in all, it captures the overall nature of who voted and why. And when you're an erratic leftish populist, as Zeman is, there's really not much of a contradiction. Leftish populism in a rather evenly divided country has a very good chance against a center-right aristocrat who is the head of a party in a very unpopular government.

This was certainly an election fought along two axes: it represented for some voters either a return to the past or a turn to the future, and also represented a left-right battle. As I discussed with a friend last night, a "forward" looking leftie may have had a better shot against Zeman's populism, and it is certainly true that Zeman focused on opening up old wounds rather than offering a Grand Vision of the Czech Republic in the 21st Century. Schwarzenberg certainly didn't help himself by asserting (probably correctly) that the mass expulsion of German-speaking Czechs after the Second World War would be considered a war crime if it were done today; he opened up a door that Zeman bulldozed his way through, and Zeman hammered this home repeatedly the last week of the campaign. (The House of Schwarzenberg was personally affected by the confiscations of land and the expulsion.) 

As Hospodářské noviny has pointed out, (also in English!) this already has implications for reorienting the Czech Republic back toward the East, with greater cooperation with Russia, and less with the US, particularly on the building of a new reactor at a nuclear power plant. It will also be interesting to see if the traditional Czech defense of civil rights and individual freedoms abroad will be toned down under a Presidency characterized by warmer relations with the Kremlin. After all, in spite of all those noble dissidents all those years ago, it must be remembered that the Czech Republic is still the only nation in the EU with an unrepentant Communist Party, and there is a huge split between those who have been "winners" since 1989 and those who have been less able to adjust to freer markets and a more open politics. 

A Quick Thing....

This tweet, (Hat tip to NRO's Morning Jolt) is awesome. And sure, everybody first thinks of the Bengals, Bears, and Lions. But I think Ravens would be the scariest.

Czechs Go to the Polls

This weekend, the Czech Republic stages a runoff, pitting the top two candidates of a preliminary election for the post of President against each other, the first direct election in the country's post-1989 history. Karel Schwarzenberg, christened "the Duke" in the Czech press, faces an uphill battle against the last of the old guard; former communist, former Social Democrat, and currently leader of the "Zemanists," the eponymous Miloš Zeman, who at 67 has run the gamut of the Czech left and enjoys a strong advantage with poorer and older Czechs who have seen prices of prescription drugs in the past twenty years increase from zero to something considerably higher than zero (though still low by American standards).

The patriarch of the House of Schwarzenberg, who really is a duke, in the old-fashioned sense of the term (though perhaps not in the John Wayne sense), has the enthusiastic support of young people, even at the age of 75, and with an embarrassing tendency to fall asleep in public. His use of the Czech language is often problematic, as his voice is more of a deep incomprehensible growl then the sound of a polished politician. His wife and family have been exposed to nasty charges about their ability to even speak the language, and Zeman's campaign has targeted nursing homes to drive home the idea that Schwarzenberg is an interloper who lived for many years abroad, while Zeman has stayed "in our land" in Czechoslovakia his entire life.

But make no mistake, what appears at the outset to be a hapless candidate nevertheless was helped by an incredible online presence, the support of movie stars, singers, and dissidents, and an authenticity that money can't buy. For American readers, this may sound familiar at first, but sometimes the best way to be "cool" is to not act too young, too polished, and too hip. It's why young people are wearing garish yellow-and-hot-pink pins with "Karel for President" written in English and a punk-rock mohawk photoshopped onto the senior candidate's head. On one level, it's a supremely ironic look. On the other, it actually makes the Duke into the poster boy of the future.

And the fact that money can't buy Schwarzenberg is not lost on the Czech population. Indeed, many Czechs are comfortable with a rich Austrian aristocrat as the next head of state precisely because he's too wealthy to be bought, and concerns about corruption are never far from voters' minds. Moreover, in many ways Schwarzenberg is the last of a different old guard. As this article in the HuffPo outlines, Schwarzenberg was a critical player in Václav Havel's inner circle, and has been a tireless advocate for human rights in the world, and the Havel's widow has also come out in support of him. He has stayed clean while other members of the party that he in fact heads have taken extremely unpopular positions on austerity and budget matters (Schwarzenberg is a centrist, but his party is rather conservative on the economic side), as well as corruption scandals that have engulfed the Czech right.

Both candidates would be less Euro-skeptic than the current President, the controversial Hayekian Václav Klaus, known for his skepticism not just on the European Union, but also on climate change. However, Zeman is also considerably more sanguine about the Czechs' relations with Russia, and his brand of populism could turn just as quickly on the European Union as it has on the Czech domestic scene. For this reason, it's no wonder that polls of Czechs abroad have overwhelmingly broken for the Duke over the squire ("Zeman" means "Squire" in Czech, and Zeman has made a few tasteless jokes to this effect). Relations with the US would almost certainly be better under a President Schwarzenberg, regardless of who is in Washington, than the populist Zeman, who appeals to the "good-old-days" voters of the Communist Party and the rump paranoid left that still plays a role in politics here.

In this way, the Czech Republic faces a choice in the coming couple of days. While the post of President in the Czech Republic is a largely ceremonial post, both of the next President's predecessors fully exploited the bully pulpit to orient the Czech Republic's international and domestic politics. Both candidates have promised to rethaw relations with Europe; whether this is done for the right reasons – to reclaim this small country's place in the world as a tireless advocate for the rights of man – or the wrong ones – to play Russia and Europe against each other – will be decided this weekend.

The Czech Presidential Election

The big Czech presidential election is underway, and due to other pressing concerns your correspondent has not yet addressed the issue in detail; additionally, this posting will be likely too short to be of much good as well. Such is the nature of things. But at least my legions of dear readers and adoring fans will have something to gnaw on for a bit.

The way it works in the Czechs' first ever direct election of the President is somewhat similar to the French way, in that the top two winners in the first round go on to a runoff, in this case next weekend. In the end, there were nine candidates on the ballot, and polls leading up to the election forecast a strong showing by Miloš Zeman and Jan Fischer, both of whom are former Prime Ministers. Both were also members of the Communist Party at some point in their lives; Zeman in the late '60s (after the Prague Spring), and Fischer during the late '80s. As Prime Minister, Zeman was a member of the Czech Social Democrats; however, Zeman left the ČSSD some years ago to found his own political party, and dedicate his life to screwing his former party. Fischer took over as Prime Minister in a technocratic caretaker cabinet after being head of the Czech Statistical Bureau. One opinion poll leading up to the election showed Zeman in first place with about 23%, Fischer with 21%, Vladimir Franz and Karel Schwarzenberg in third and fourth place (at about 12% and 10%), followed by the candidate of the ČSSD (Czech Social Democrats), Jiří Dienstbier, Jr.

The winner of tonight's round and punching his ticket to the runoff, Miloš Zeman, has a reputation for being (somewhat) incorruptible personally, if not a little bit sleazy. At one point in the '90s, some Czech gangster was even recorded discussing which politicians could be bribed; Zeman was one of the few who couldn't at any price. According to the guy, Zeman "just wants to be popular with people." He is kind of a chubby guy, and legendary for his alleged alcohol consumption, and definitely is a bit of a populist. But he's also positioned himself on the left side of the Czech political spectrum, while at the same time doing everything possible to hinder the Czech Social Democrats and the Communist Party. Zeman's party is not much without him, but it would be an impressive capstone to his political career.

The second-place candidate, however, was a bit of a surprise. The main "story" of this evening is the upset of Karel Schwarzenberg over Jan Fischer, and Schwarzenberg's subsequent advancement to the next round. (Journalists love the horse-race!) Schwarzenberg is nicknamed "the Duke," not because of any particular affinity for John Wayne in this part of the world, but, well, because he is one. He possesses and deploys an aristocratic air, and one reason Czechs find him to be so attractive as a politician is because he is wholly free of corruption. This in part is due to the widespread assumption that he is far wealthier than the people who would attempt to bribe him. His first obstacle to winning a bedroom in Prague Castle is his age -- the Duke is 75, and looks older than that. On the other hand, his opponent is 68, and Zeman isn't exactly known for his healthy lifestyle either. More difficult to overcome will be his association with the current government, in which he is Minister of Foreign Affairs. The government is extremely unpopular right now, and the previous election, for one-third of the Senate in October, showed that voters are champing at the bit to vote for the left. And while Schwarzenberg has been reliably moderate throughout his political career, he remains to the left of Zeman, and it could be that voters are willing to put Zeman "na hrad" -- to the castle.

Ultimately, Fischer is probably the most disappointed tonight, as it may signal the end of his political career. Czech voters ultimately settled on two of the more colorful characters in Czech politics (though the artist Vladimír Franz and his quixotic campaign was undoubtedly the most colorful in a literal sense), rather than the statistician/bureaucrat. The young Dienstbier, who was born in Washington, DC and whose father was a dissident, probably has positioned himself very well à la Paul Ryan, and Franz will probably just go back to being Vladimír Franz. It will be interesting to see more complete exit polls if they become available; my hunch is in the voting booth, that many of the people who said "Franz" during polling strategically realized that Schwarzenberg was the guy most likely to get to the second round, and that ČSSD was far more effective at mobilizing its people for Dienstbier than they were given credit for. But for that, we'll need a chat with some experts.