Final Word from Thursday, November 24, 2011
Blesk published the results of a Sanep poll of the biggest crooksin Czech politics of the past 22 years, and Stanislav Gross wasthe easy winner, followed by Miroslav Kalousek, Václav Klaus,Aleš Řebíček and Alexandr Vondra. One of our favorite targets,Bohuslav "Suitcase" Sobotka, was near the rear of the pack, atNo. 15. But next year at this time, if Blesk repeats the exercise,Sobotka's "luck" might change. His name keeps coming upwith regard to two of the most-disputed privatization cases ofall time, MUS and OKD mines. He was finance minister at thetime, and action by the Swiss prosecutors is making it moreand more difficult to keep the dirty details under the rug. Itwould be very inconvenient indeed if any of those 100 Swissbank accounts in the MUS case also popped up with regardto OKD. But we're not making any bets about Sobotka just yet,because he has a very clever lawyer friend, Radek Pokorný. It'snot for naught that our nickname for Sobotka is "Suitcase," andnot "Offshore Bank Account," if you get what we mean.
Glossary of difficult words
to cash in on something - to make money or to profit from something;
pack - a group or set of similar things or people;
to pop up - to appear suddenly; to show up (such as on a computer screen);
not for naught - not for nothing; not without reason or purpose.