Final Word from Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Is Miloš Zeman healthy, or has the covid quarantine affected his mind and body? Did he go bonkers from all that abstemiousness? Perhaps Art. 66 of the Constitution should be invoked to strip him of his powers after all, because his decision yesterday to give in lock, stock and barrel to Designated PM Petr Fiala in terms of appointing Jan Lipavský as foreign minister is clearly not the act of a man who remembers what he had said three days before. Or did he realize, to paraphrase his own comment from the 2003 presidential race, that the blow he wanted to inflict on Lipavský would have missed its mark and hit the entire country? Zeman had been keeping everyone guessing for the past two months, and now the guessing game starts again. Has he come to terms with the "putsch attempt," with Pavel Rychetský's amendment to the election law, and with the Pandora Papers? Will he serve out his term in peaceful cohabitation? Or is it still the same old Zeman, watching and waiting? [ Czech Republic book erred in politics memoirs ODS president ]
Glossary of difficult words
to lose it - to become deranged or mentally disturbed; to lose control of one's temper;
bonkers - mad; crazy;
abstemiousness - drinking and eating in moderation;
lock, stock and barrel - completely; including everything;
cohabitation - a system of divided government under which the president is from a different political party from the majority of the members of parliament.