Czech president recaps 2009, sees outcome of climate summit as "pyrrhic victory"

• Published in: BBC Monitoring European
• Format: Newsletter
• Language: English
• Published: London BBC Worldwide Limited 28.12.2009
• Subjects: Dengler, Robert; Klaus, Vaclav; CZECH

[Interview with Czech President Vaclav Klaus by Robert Dengler; place and date not given: "President of the Republic Vaclav Klaus in an Exclusive Interview for [Pravo]: It Is Hard for Voters and, I Admit, It Is Hard for Me As Well"] [Klaus] I, as the president, certainly am no measure of public opinion. Nevertheless, I talk with my extended family, with various kinds of people I meet at sports and cultural events, and these people are no politicians sitting in chambers of deputies of senates. And the one conclusion I reach is this: a lot of people have no idea whom they should vote for. There are fewer of those who are unambiguously convinced that they support the right, which has been in the Czech Republic represented for two decades by the ODS, or the left represented by the CSSD. Suddenly, there are a number of people here who have some significant objections against both of these parties and who say: "I have no one to vote for." This comes from people who have always voted for the ODS or the CSSD. This is a phenomenon completely unprecedented in the past 20 years. They are waiting for some new parties to emerge but I do not believe that that is going to be the case. [Klaus] I strongly oppose the use of terms such as "godfather" and "big fisherman." These are just cheesy labels [introduced by ODS Chairman Topolanek when commenting on recruitment of "ghost party members" to increase voting powers of particular regional branches of party and sponsorships of local businessmen] that I myself would never use. Nobody is disputing that political parties need financial resources in order to exist, and that there are people hovering around hoping to get a slice. This is undoubtedly part of life in any country in the world. And they also take part in political clashes in which one group is settling accounts with another group. The only way out for the parties is to return to the original ideas on which they had been founded. But from the looks of it, we have already lost this particular fight.