Zeman takes to the castle

Since the days of the country's democratic rebirth, it has become customary for the Czech president to accompany his anointment with a speech that seeks to restore faith in the political system, generates civic energy for economic reform, and - above all - patches up the rifts of a divided society.

On the surface, the inaugural speech of Miloš Zeman seemed to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors' calls for social cohesion. Its implications, however, are anything but unifying.

The country's first directly elected president, Zeman took the presidential oath at the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle March 8 in a ceremony featuring all the decorum befitting this stately ritual. Aside from the Cabinet and members of Parliament, the event was attended by the country's intellectual and cultural elite, the outgoing President Václav Klaus and Dagmar Havlová, widow of the late former President Václav Havel.

It was Havel who, in one of his first national addresses as president following the 1989 revolution, set the tone for presidential rhetoric of later decades, augmenting his calls for democracy-building with philosophical reflections and poignant metaphors. He called on the nation, decimated by four decades of communism, to rally around moral principles set out by the nation's traditional Judeo-Christian values.

"I want to be a president that will talk less and work more," Havel had concluded.

The inauguration speech of his successor, Václav Klaus, 13 years later was curter and less grandiose in nature but kept the messages set out by Havel in mind. Promising to be an "active" but never "activist" president, Klaus vowed to restore confidence in the political scene, which he said had been mired by "secretive" dealings. He also called for national unity for the cane of economic growth and promised to try to put an "optimistic smile" on the faces of the public in what he called a testing time for the nation.

The words of newly sworn-in Zeman borrowed elements from both his predecessors, echoing some of Havel's moral musings as well as Klaus' simpler language and wholesale pragmatism. Like both presidents before him, he emphasized the challenges the country faced in tough economic times. Like Klaus, he offered to guide the country's political scene while pledging he would not get too involved. Emulating the moral authority of Havel, he concluded his address with a short prayer, but called himself a "tolerant atheist."

Despite these apparent nods to the continuity of the office, in many regards Zeman's speech indicated his determination to mark the Czech presidency with a style entirely his own. Steeped in his trademark brand of populism, the address highlighted his past promise to act as "the voice of the lower 10 million underprivileged citizens," regardless of their political conviction and presidential candidate of choice. Exalting the efforts of socially responsible businessmen, small-town mayors, and ordinary workers whom he called the "salt of the earth," Zeman pledged unwavering support for these members of society, whom he called an "island of positive deviation" and "above-average performance."

Not all were privy to words of praise, however. In the following passage, Zeman proceeded to deride what he called three of the nation's "negative deviations": the "Godfather mafia," or unnamed corrupt groups that he said parasitize the body of Czech society; the neo-Nazis; and - last but not least - a majority of local journalists.

Zeman said "a sizeable portion of Czech media … focuses on brainwashing, media massage and manipulation with public opinion."

"A president must support successful and socially beneficial personas, who are frequently surrounded by envious stupidity, and continuously tell them, 'Don't be bothered,' " Zeman continued. "Vice versa, he must continue to tell the envious simpletons, behind whom there is no honest work, 'Don't bother us.' "

While much of his speech took the tone of obligatory statesman rhetoric, this particularly charged passage raised alarms with many pundits, including political analyst Bohumil Doležal. Pointing out that Zeman's criticism met with applause from the politicians and celebrities present at the inauguration, Doležal warned of an approaching crackdown on media freedom reminiscent of the Normalization era. He also pointed out that some of the new president's biggest critics - including his main rival in the election campaign, Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg - had remained conspicuously silent on the matter.

"The crumbling of bolshevism before the spring of 1968 began with … the freedom given to the previously regulated media. It turned out that freedom of speech tends to bring out other civic freedoms," Doležal said. "Conversely, media regulation - though of course Mr. President does not want to regulate media … media just have to be different and better - can also mean the transformation of other significant institutions upon which democracy is built. … We should note that the current political elite agrees with this."

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at
mhulpachova@praguepost.com