Final Word from Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Czech election surveys have often been so horribly inaccurate that it's proper to praise one that got it right. Factum Invenio's poll results in MFD five days before the Prague elections gave TOP 09 a 29.6% rating, followed by ODS (24.4%), ČSSD (16.3%), the Communists (8.0%) and VV (7.7%). The actual outcome was TOP (30.3%), ODS (23.1%), ČSSD (17.9%), KSČM (6.8%) and VV (5.7%). Only the Greens-SNK, with 5.9% of the vote (compared to the survey result of 4.9%), slightly spoiled the show. Jan Herzmann of Factum was able to predict that the "czarist gubernators" in Prague would be slapped down by voters, but what his survey can't predict is what will happen next. ODS's "gubernators" are blind and drunk on power, Herzmann told MFD, and they're convinced that they'll always be able to cook something up in the back room. What they say this week, we might add, should be largely ignored, because the real business of trying to rewrite the election results won't start until after this weekend's Senate finale.[Czech Republic MF Dnes]
Glossary of difficult words
KSČM - the Czech abbreviation for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia;
to spoil - to diminish or destroy the value or quality of;
gubernator - the word for a regional governor in czarist Russia; usually used in English only to refer to Arnold Schwarzenegger, because of his dual role as governor and Terminator;
to slap someone down - to reprimand someone forcefully.