Final Word from Monday, February 25, 2008
Jan Švejnar entered the presidential campaign not wanting to be the "anti-Klaus" candidate but eventually turned into one. In his speeches and media appearances, he increasingly positioned himself as being the good and Václav Klaus the bad, going so far as indirectly to compare Klaus to a dictator. Klaus drew him into this by defining the rules of the campaign and then playing the game like no one else can. Švejnar could have saved himself by gracefully accepting defeat, but his post-election interviews have continued in the same vein. ODS suffers from a cult of personality, he told MFD, for example. In contrast, Jiří Paroubek targets the Topolánek-Dalík group as the main evil and says that, in comparison, Klaus is a very decent person. Paroubek has apparently understood what Švejnar has not: With Klaus still in control, there's room in Czech politics for a non-Klaus, but not for an anti-Klaus.[Czech Republic MF Dnes Mirek Marek Stalin]
Glossary of difficult words
anti-Klaus - a person seen as aggressively opposing Klaus and what he stands for, instead of merely presenting a political alternative;
dictator - Švejnar indirectly compared Klaus to ex-Communist leader Gustáv Husák in one interview and in another said that if Klaus is reelected, he will have dominated Czech politics longer than many dictators in other countries;
in the same vein - in the same manner, way;
cult of personality - a misplaced or excessive admiration for someone; coined by Khrushchev to describe the rule of Stalin;
Topolánek-Dalík - see Právo from Feb. 23 (not available on the web for unregistered users); Paroubek said they do not play fair;
non-Klaus - a person who is different from Klaus but does not define himself as being against Klaus; it will be interesting to see what Green Chair Martin Bursík does in this respect.