Klaus-Havel rivalry plays out on city streets

Old rivalries die hard.

From that fact comes one of many questions raised by posters that popped up Nov. 9 paying tribute to President Václav Klaus. Among the queries: Who is behind the poster campaign? And why do they appear now, just as the Czech Republic begins celebrating the 20th anniversary since the fall of communism?

Officially, the proliferation of posters reading, "Václave, stojíme za tebou" (Václav, we stand behind you) is the responsibility of a hitherto little known organization, the Civic Democratic Perspective (Občanska demokratická perspektiva, ODP), but it is unclear where the windfall of cash needed to finance such a promotional blitz came from.

Among the places displaying posters are 26 illuminated cylindrical columns, sold by advertising firm Big Media, at a price of 161,200 Kč ($9,539).

"They are only for cultural events," said Petr Kettner from Big Media. "The Klaus thing, well, that's different."

Add to that the billboards on Nusle Bridge for 312,000 Kč per month, and 176,000 Kč per month for at least two full-size billboards, plus 19 percent sales tax, and the minimum for financing the campaign comes to 772,548 Kč. The total is actually considerably higher, as this estimate is based on the minimum number of spots the posters hold, assumes ODP did the labor placing the posters and discounts the cost of the posters themselves.

Jan Lupoměský, of ODP, and leader of another organization, the Young Conservatives, offered some of the group's motivations but was less forthcoming when asked who paid for the campaign.  

"We know that our president was being supported in his fight for the sovereignty of the Czech Republic by thousands of citizens, however, their voice was not heard in the media," Lupoměský said. "We gain financial support from membership fees and from private person fees."

Klaus' office declined to comment on the poster campaign.

Lupoměský would not comment on the timing of the campaign, which appeared as the country prepared to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution - an event connected in history books with Klaus' longtime rival Václav Havel.

Though a brief thawing of tensions transpired when Klaus attended Havel's star-studded anniversary concert Nov. 14, for direct evidence of strains between the two, one need look no further than Havel's memoir To the Castle and Back.

"We got used to Klaus' occasional offensiveness, to his capacity for radiating negative energy, to his brand of irony, to his narcissism, and to his aversion - which he mostly kept well-hidden - to the rest of us, whom he had clearly consigned to the same dumpster, with a sign on it saying 'left-wing intellectuals,' " he writes.

Havel and Klaus have been at odds for nearly two decades, a split, experts say, that comes down to fundamental philosophical divisions.

"They disagreed on how society should be formed," said Vladimíra Dvořáková, director of political science at the University of Economics in Prague. "Havel believed problems could be solved by civil society. Klaus believes there is no civil society, there is only the individual and the state and nothing in between."

In the timing of the latest poster campaign, some say the rivalry continues, with Klaus and his allies attempting to get due credit for events in 1989 and in its aftermath. While Havel remains the conquering hero of 1989, Klaus, who continues to mold his legacy, may feel overlooked.

"Klaus makes no secret he is very competitive," said Petr Drulák, director of the Prague Institute for International Relations. "Klaus sees Havel as a worthy rival. He wouldn't see anybody else in such terms."

Havel and Klaus butted heads directly when Havel served as president, first of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, from 1989 through 2003, and Klaus served as prime minister for much of 1992 and from 1993 to 1997.  

"Once real politics started," Drulák said. "Klaus and his company were more successful."

By winning over the common man, Klaus was able to mold the Czech Republic during the 1990s, more so than Havel, Dvořáková said.

"Havel was recognized as a dissident hero," Drulák said. "Klaus was sort of part of the system, not really somebody who could claim resistance. With Klaus, people could identify. None of us were heroes."

But still, Havel seemed to hold a place in the national narrative as the leader on the path to democracy.

"Klaus was in some sense very jealous," Dvořáková said.

In the present day, Havel is retired, and Klaus has replaced him as president.

"The things Klaus used to criticize President Havel for, like getting too involved in foreign policy, are the very things Klaus is doing now," Drulák said.

"Looking at the Klaus of today, he would like to show himself as the defender of national sovereignty. Ironically, he would like to be seen as the new Havel, a new freedom fighter."

And Klaus seems to have supporters that go far beyond the common man into people able to mobilize a million crowns for posters within days of his signing the Lisbon Treaty Nov. 3.  

Mysterious advertising campaigns aside, both Klaus and Havel remain in the shadow of another national hero, Drulák says.

"Neither will end up having the same status as Masaryk."

- Petr Cibulka Jr. and Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com