Final Word from Wednesday, July 3, 2024

We've written before that one of the biggest mistakes in Czech politics was the decision by Karel Schwarzenberg and Miroslav Kalousek of TOP 09 on the weekend of June 14-16, 2013, to force PM Petr Nečas of ODS to resign without first having assurance of who the next PM would be. This gave Pres. Miloš Zeman the opening he needed to appoint his own government, headed by Jiří Rusnok. The argument that Schwarzenberg and Kalousek couldn't have anticipated this move by Zeman doesn't hold water. Zeman had already made it clear that he thought he had the constitutional power to sack Nečas. The Czech cabinet now finds itself in a somewhat similar situation as the Democrats in the U.S. quarrel about who should face Donald Trump on Nov. 5. Some Democrats are calling for Joe Biden to pull out, but without saying who the new candidate would be. There's no way for Czechs to know how much this phantom person would continue Biden's foreign policy. Foreign Min. Jan Lipavský told Reflex that the CR needs a Plan A for a Biden victory and a Plan B for a Trump victory. It needs to start thinking about a Plan C. [ Czech Republic United States Democratic Party ]