Final Word from Monday, September 20, 2021

Pirates Chair Ivan Bartoš calls his party a "centrist liberal party," whereas ODS Chair Petr Fiala calls the Pirates the "new left." One man's left is another man's center, but the idea of mixing the new left with the old right is too much for many people to swallow. The two parties are so far apart on taxes, energy and the environment that formal declarations about a government of the two anti-Babiš coalitions (Pirates/STAN and Spolu) tend to drive voters away from the five-party super-coalition. More tactical would be to leak information about a possible new "opposition agreement," similar to the one Miloš Zeman of ČSSD and Václav Klaus of ODS signed after the elections of 1998. If the Pirates are truly the lesser evil for ODS when put up against Andrej Babiš, Fiala & Co. should be willing to let them run the country with STAN as a minority government under pre-agreed terms. And the same goes for the Pirates, if Spolu does better. The alternative is another four years of Babiš. [ Czech Republic Together KDU-ČSL TOP 09 Left Right parliamentary ]