Final Word from Monday, August 1, 2016

Miloš Zeman doesn't want to let the "tunneling" of OKD by Zdeněk Bakala to go away, and he used an interview with Blesk TV yesterday to tie the privatization of the mines into the ongoing police reorganization. If the reorganization leads to the investigation of Bakala, he said, he will be pleased. Zeman isn't a president who looks at things in terms of right and wrong, any more than Bohuslav Sobotka is a PM who governs this way. They both make expedient political decisions. Sobotka supports the police reorganization because he sees it as a way to save the skin of high-level ČSSD operatives, including himself. Zeman has given it his lukewarm support for the opposite reason, because he sees it as a way to attack those in ČSSD who opposed him in the past and who still get under his skin. Zeman's message to Interior Min. Milan Chovanec is clear: If you want my full support for the police reform, you must go after Bakala and his enablers. [Czech Republic asset-stripping NWR reform]