Final Word from Thursday, January 5, 2023

A "young and attractive" Danuše Nerudová was out of her league when, as the newly appointed head of the government's pension commission, she faced economist Miroslav Zámečník on ČT's OVM debate show on March 3, 2019. Zámečník, himself the former head of a pension commission, knew the numbers and wanted to talk about real reform, whereas Nerudová said that we are "at one minute to midnight, if not five minutes past it," but that the difficult parts of pension reform should be put off until later. Even Václav Moravec was nonplussed. Nerudová also boasted at the end of the show that, as a university rector, she knows something about managing people. Her main rival now in the presidential elections is Petr Pavel, whose career in retrospect - other than his Communist days - was fine preparation for a presidential run. In Nerudová's case, it's increasingly apparent that she would have done many things differently if she had known that she would one day be eyeing the Castle. [ Czech Republic Television Otázka Václava Moravce ]