Final Word from Thursday, February 18, 2016
A shift to Zeman is an option for politicians who change their positions as often as their underwear, but it's out of the question for political commentators who have carved out their niche by equating Miloš Zeman with everything bad in society. Political analyst Jiří Pehe has written often about the need to amend the Constitution to protect against Zeman's excesses, but he wrote this week that it is Bohuslav Sobotka who is on thin ice by attacking Zeman for being divisive. In a similar comment two days later, Alexandr Mitrofanov of Právo said that Sobotka could do himself in, without any assistance from Zeman, if his government doesn't handle the migration wave well. Pehe and Mitrofanov have up to now been two of Sobotka's biggest supporters in the media. Their new problem is the same as ČSSD's: How to hedge against an increasingly vulnerable Sobotka when the chief alternative, Milan Chovanec, is also on rather thin ice? [Czech Republic interior minister president amendment]
Glossary of difficult words
to hedge - to protect oneself against financial loss or other adverse circumstances by making a balancing or compensating investment;
to be on thin ice - to be in a precarious or risky situation;
to do oneself in - to destroy or kill oneself.