Final Word from Monday, November 15, 2004
MP Vlastimil Tlustý of ODS told the BBC before the elections that Stanislav Gross doesn't know anything, except perhaps how to run a PR campaign. This seemed overstated at the time, but the election results indicate that it's actually worse than Tlustý painted it - Gross doesn't even know his PR. First Gross alienated voters by asking them to back the Communists instead of ODS in the second round of the Senate elections. Then, when ČSSD failed to win any seats, he showed he can't take defeat by calling for the abolition of the Senate. He also clashed with Václav Klaus, kept silent when his wife was spotted carrying a fake Louis Vuitton handbag, and stood up for his boys at Čepro regarding a Kč 2.5bn fraud. Gross, the supposed media guru, is making one PR mistake after another. His only hope is to drop the PR and get down to running the country. counterfeit intellectual property rights public relations