Final Word from Tuesday, March 8, 2016

According to Milan Chovanec of ČSSD, his party's new "The state is not a company" election campaign is a reaction to the disinformation spread by Andrej Babiš's media. Chovanec apparently meant mainly the article in MFD on Feb. 19 about the purchase by the owners of Bison & Rose PR agency of a mountain inn from OKD. Babiš and Chovanec are getting personal, accusing each other of dirty practices. Babiš abuses state subsidies, according to Chovanec, and Chovanec's ČSSD, according to Babiš, gets campaign funds from Škoda Transportation, with a commission going to B&R. The logical conclusion from what Babiš is saying is that ČSSD has a financial interest in seeing that Škoda wins its arbitration case with Czech Railways. This suggests criminal behavior, but instead of providing any proof of abuse on either side, Chovanec and Babiš are merely joining the pissing match started by MFD. It's time for them all to get out of the gutter. [Czech Republic interior minister Arbitration Court]