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ČSSD names Senate candidates

Among party nominations, some familiar faces surface

By Ondřej Bouda
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 11th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Miloš Zeman, former ČSSD head and PM
VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Jiří Dienstbier, former foreign affairs minister
COURTESY PHOTO
Vladimír Dryml, Vrchlabí hospital director
COURTESY PHOTO
Jiří Witzany, former chancellor of ČVÚT
COURTESY PHOTO
Dr. Miloš Janeček, Brno Trauma Hospital
JAN MACUCH/The Prague Post
Miroslav Antl, former state prosecutor
A major step was taken toward the fall election season when the senior opposition party Social Democrats (ČSSD) announced their candidates for the October Senate and regional elections at a party conference in Pardubice May 31.
The ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) currently control 41 seats in the 81-member Senate and 12 out of 14 regional governors. The ČSSD will attempt to weaken that majority hold as much as possible.
“These elections will mean a referendum of no confidence for the ruling coalition,” ČSSD Chairman Jiří Paroubek said. “Especially the ODS — which fears referendums as the devil fears the cross — needs to be handed a bill for its activities.”
ČSSD members used the conference to present the most important areas of their program. Their main initiatives include abolishing doctor fees, stopping the privatization of hospitals and health insurance companies, taking a stronger stand against corruption, providing more support for families with children, abolishing the flat income tax and guaranteeing pensions. The ČSSD has also promised to establish a direct presidential election, find more money for education and research and to secure better access to EU funds.
Despite the fact that the elections will have a very local character, the ČSSD has decided to tackle the most important issues on a national level. “The country is at a crossroads. We offer an honest state with equal opportunities for everyone,” Paroubek said. “Our Program of Hope can fix the changes that the current government has already made or is planning,”
To spearhead its campaign of change, the ČSSD has nominated many well-known personalities. Among the 27 candidates running for the Senate in October will be former chancellor of Czech Technical University Jiří Witzany; the first post-communist foreign affairs minister, Jiří Dienstbier; and the director of a hospital in Vrchlabí, Vladimír Dryml, who became famous after he refused to collect hospital fees from patients and clashed with insurance officials over the issue. Dryml is one of eight doctors on the candidate list who are supposed to prove that the Social Democrats understand the health system and the reforms that it needs.
Another well-known party member, former presidential candidate Jan Švejnar, has declined to run for the Senate but promised his support for the campaign. “I would like to resurrect the coalition that united behind me in February,” he said. At the time it was a coalition put together in order to defeat the ODS and its presidential candidate, incumbent Václav Klaus.
Blast from the past
As the party leadership works to rally its members for the election, a familiar name emerged when former Industry and Trade Minister Miroslav Grégr formed a group called Friends of Miloš Zeman. Their goal is to return the former ČSSD chairman and prime minister to politics as president.
“I wouldn’t mind being president, but it would have to be decided in a direct vote, and I’d have to have political support from a majority of parties,” Zeman said in response to this latest effort to bring him out of retirement.
Zeman’s former aide and good friend Miroslav Šlouf feels that he does want to return to high politics. “It will be a return similar to that of Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle. However, it will still take some time,” Šlouf said.
Zeman officially retired from politics when he left the ČSSD in March 2007; however, every now and again he creates challenges for Paroubek, who is skeptical of any future political involvement.
“Zeman has tried to disrupt my policies in the past. He simply cannot accept that his day and age are gone,” Paroubek said. “But I don’t think that his return to politics is realistic anytime soon. There have been such attempts in the past, and they never worked.”

Ondřej Bouda can be reached at obouda@praguepost.com


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