The 1990s were the times of Mrázek and those like him, those who had millions from the black-market that they were ultimately able to make use of. Mrázek was no super entrepreneur like Zlín footwear baron Tomáš Baťa or carmaker Emil Škoda; he would otherwise hardly meet his end at the hand of a professional sniper. A question comes to mind in the wake of his assassination: Was it meant to be that the goal of his journey to billions of crowns was to hide in an armored car with bodyguards, in permanent fear of assassination, in fear for himself and those close to him? I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Mrázek returning home in his car, passing a small beer stand and looking with envy at the guys who stop there daily to drink a few without having to worry that anybody would make them a target. I don't have much faith that we'll ever find out who ordered Mrázek's death. I would be more interested in finding out what happened to the hundreds of billions of crowns lost in the Czech privatization miracle, lost in the correct, and therefore only possible, means of economic transformation, as President Václav Klaus calls it at economic summits. The 1990s created billionaires who are now shot at by snipers, hide on exotic islands and make no move without bodyguards and expensive lawyers. I am afraid the 1990s will long remain the source of our nightmares, Verner writes.

The biggest dissapointment of the Social Democrats' (ČSSD) Jan. 28 conference to present the party's election program was the array of proposed solutions in areas that consume the most state finances — the ideas were so vague that it seems the trend of postponing reforms as a program of its own will continue, Bohumil Pečinka writes in Mladá fronta Dnes Jan. 30.

It looks like the ČSSD will no longer be able to struggle against "the powerful of this world," a pillar of their program, because, after eight years in power, they themselves are the powerful ones. However, Bohuslav Sobotka showed that nothing's impossible and once again offered horror tales of the early 1990s [when the opposition Civic Democrats were in charge], comparing those years with what he called the better state of the economy of the late communist era. Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek introduced in his opening speech the post-election concept of a minority government supported by the communists. He called it a government of the talented ones. Two-thirds of the Cabinet members would be from the ČSSD, and the remaining third would be ČSSD-friendly experts, the likes of Vítězslav Jandák or David Rath. This continues a trend of setting up a smaller cabinet inside the main one, and one that is fully under the prime minister's personal command. The victorious atmosphere was fully apparent throughout the conference, and the ČSSD's program is based on the premise that the entire society feels the same. However, citizens' ideas of their living standards do not necessarily conform to those wonderful macroeconomic numbers. Over the past years we have seen an increase in VAT and energy prices, growing household debt, and the unemployment rate's failure to decline. It is therefore yet to be seen whether the ČSSD election program will appeal to voters and shift support further toward the party, Pečinka writes.