Postview: Prague City Hall, where time stands still

The new "grand coalition" leadership at Prague City Hall has done everything to avoid taking the opinions of voters into account in recent weeks, and they seem determined to continue.

With a protest against the Civic Democrat (ODS) and Social Democrat (ČSSD) coalition scheduled for midday Nov. 30 to coincide with the opening of the City Assembly, a City Hall spokesman hinted that the opening might be pushed to Dec. 1. Next, city leaders kept the original date but tried to move the opening up a few hours to 9 a.m. in an attempt to avoid angry demonstrators who oppose this alliance between the country's most entrenched, and completely ideologically opposed, parties.

There is nothing more oxymoronic than elected officials doing everything they can to avoid meeting the very people they are meant to represent, and these latest attempts at deception make at least two things clear.

The first of these is that even the members of this coalition - which is opposed by every national political leader (including heads of the respective parties) save for President Václav Klaus - seem ashamed at their cowardly marriage of convenience. Why else would they feel the need to sneak around? If you were a city assemblyman (or woman) who believed in what you were doing, why not walk into City Hall in front of anybody who cares to watch?

The second is that this coalition and the people involved are still very much operating with a political mentality that more closely resembles 20th-century Czechoslovakia than the 21st-century Czech Republic.

How else would they think they could confuse protesters by merely moving their schedule around? It is as if they had no idea the Internet had ever been invented and can actually be utilized to organize events - and even change their time.

Too bad the times aren't changing at City Hall.