Final Word from Monday, August 26, 2019

No one wants to talk about it much, except for maybe Petr Kolář of MF Dnes, but the No. 2 winner in the months-long dispute over the culture ministry was Václav Klaus Jr. of Tricolor. Pres. Miloš Zeman came out the clear winner and made great strides in remolding the meaning of the Constitution, but things might have turned out differently if Klaus hadn't been in the right place at the right time. ČSSD Chair Jan Hamáček could have risked the breakup of the coalition by insisting on Michal Šmarda as culture minister, but he knew that Klaus Jr. and a handful of like-minded renegades, including Jaroslav Foldyna of ČSSD, were ready to step in. This would have allowed PM Andrej Babiš to do an end-run around the effort by ČSSD a.s. to force him into the arms of the "extremists" from SPD. Now that Klaus Jr. has shown his worth as a cloak-and-dagger kingmaker, he must still prove that he can do it in broad daylight by getting Tricolor into the next Parliament. [ Czech Republic extreme MFD ]