Final Word from Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Nora Fridrichová gets sacked from "168 hodin" for occasionally stepping on the toes of coalition politicians but Miroslav Kalousek gets to rail every day against the national budget while still overseeing the till at VZP medical insurer? That paradox says a lot about the limits of Petr Fiala's advisers. Kalousek is clearly the greater threat to the future of the fragile coalition, but Fiala's team is unable to rein him in. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows what's at stake if Kalousek uses his platform to launch a new "fiscally responsible" political party. Say he gets 5-10% of the vote, Přísaha/Motoristé snag 5-10% and Spolu loses 5-10 percentage points of its current 20%. That brings Spolu dangerously close to the 11% threshold for a three-party coalition. Maybe Kalousek is bluffing, but can Fiala really afford to risk it? The better move would be to sell TOP 09 back to Kalousek and Richard Háva and let it become the internal-coalition opposition that the Pirates should have been but never were. [ Czech Republic Omnipol health Oath Motorists ODS Czech Television TV ]
Glossary of difficult words
to rail against - to complain or protest strongly and persistently about;
till - a cash register or drawer for money in a shop, bank or restaurant;
to rein in - to keep under control;
back-of-the-envelope - done quickly to provide a rough estimate; not exact;
to snag - to catch or obtain.