Final Word from Thursday, October 22, 2020
Our email system doesn't allow us to use the same headline twice, so we added some emphasis to yesterday's title to circumvent this annoying but necessary limitation. Repeating oneself is easy to do unless a system is in place to confound such human excess. The security law is also equipped with a safeguard. The government can unilaterally declare a state of emergency for 30 days, but if it wants to extend it, it needs Parliament's approval. There is no opposition in Parliament, as we wrote yesterday, so there's little reason to doubt that the state of emergency will be extended beyond Nov. 3. If, by some quirk, an opposition did spring forth and block the extension, PM Andrej Babiš could temporarily get around it. Nothing in the security law or Constitution prevents him from allowing a state of emergency to expire and then immediately declaring a new one. As long as Babiš avoids anything as blatantly authoritarian as that, it seems that he will face no political opposition. [ Czech Republic crisis safety ]
Glossary of difficult words
effing - used as a euphemism for ‘fucking,' for emphasis or to express annoyance;
to circumvent - to find a way around (an obstacle);
to confound - to defeat (a plan, aim or hope);
safeguard - a measure taken to protect someone or something or to prevent something undesirable;
quirk - a strange chance occurrence.