LAST WEEK saw plenty of action, for Czech standards al least, both in politics and elsewhere. It was a week when the cabinet lost its highest-placed member so far, when the most serious contender (aside from the incumbent) in next year's presidential election started actively wooing the members of the parliament and last, but by all means not least, it was a week when the streets of Prague turned into a batllefield where increasingly brazen Neo-Nazis faced a wide spectrum of their opponents from Jewish community, anarchist circles, law enforcement, political parties, NGOs and other concerned citizens who felt an urge to come and say enough is enough.
Battle of the Jewish Town
On Monday, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic declared the planned rally illegal, although it also chastised Prague city council over their attempts to ban the rally for wrong reasons.
The young right-wing radicals were determined to push ahead with their plans and march through the streets of Prague's old Jewish Town on the 69th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht (a 1938 prequel to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany) anyway, which prompted the authorities to mobilize a 1600-people strong security force complete with helicopters, armored trucks and riot troops in full gear.
At the same time, the moderate anti-Nazi coalition including Jewish community leaders, NGOs and politicians took over the Jewish Town with a series of gatherings commemorating the tragic events of the 1938 pogrom and calling for the vigilance against those who either want to deny that the horrors of the Holocaust actually happened, or try to celebrate them.
And there was no mistaking that this was what the Neo-Nazis had in mind when they announced plans to "protest against the Czech military presence in Iraq".
One skinhead, speaking in Slovak, told Czech TV on Saturday the "Kristallnacht was an important date which needs to be commemorated, since it marked the beginning of the annihilation of Jews".
Minutes later, cameras caught a vicious confrontation between a group of anti-fascist radicals and several Neo-Nazis, one of them beaing bloodily beaten and left in an apperent daze. Several other minor clashes were reported throughout the city, some involving also police.
Altogether, nearly three hundred people were arrested (including at least 96 foreigners, mostly from Slovakia), mainly right-wing radicals and their militant opponents from the Antifa group. None of the Nazis made it to the Jewish Town, which has been sealed off by police cordons.
Čunek remains a party leader
As promised the week before, Deputy Prime Minister Jiří Čunek resigned from the cabinet on Wednesday. He remains a leader of the Christain Democratic party (KDU-ČSL), though, as he was able to convince his party colleagues that the 3,5 million Czech Crowns which he deposited in his bank accounts in 1998 were acquired legally.
As Aktuálně.cz learned, the money came from his relatives, and the fact, that he was claiming social welfare at the time, was actually also perfectly legal. Nonetheless, it was precisely this seemingly unethical conduct, which was questioned by an investigative report on Czech TV and which has created an uproar that led to Čunek's departure from the cabinet.
While the party leadership accepted their leader's explanation, the final decision over whether he will have to defend his position as a chairman of KDU-ČSL in a special election, will be taken at the next party congress in December.
The clash of the professors in the making
The same day Mr. Čunek was "stripping bare" in front of his colleagues(as one of the KDU-ČSL MPs called it in an interview for Aktuálně.cz), the Christian Democrats received another important visit in person of a presidential hopeful and famous economist Jan Švejnar, who had been already endorsed by Social Democrats and the Greens as their preferred candidate.
While Christian Democrats gave no firm commitments after the first meeting, they seemed to like Mr. Švejnar as confirmed by several individual statements of theirs.
"I have a very good feeling. Professor Švejnar is that kind of a person who knows how to respond to various issues which are of immense importance to us, be it European Union or euthanasia," said the leader of KDU-ČSL faction in the lower house of the parliament, Michaela Šojdrová.
Czech-born, US-based university teacher, who enjoys support of the former president Václav Havel among others, also met with the communist lawmakers whose support proved crucial last time a head of state was elected in the Czech Republic.
"Mr. Švejnar is an educated person with a broad outlook. It is questionable whether that is enough to become president. I did get an impression that he can be trusted, his answers were very honest," said the communist (KSČM) faction leader Pavel Kováčik.
He said that while some of his fellow party members mightfind it hard to accept Professor Švejnar's US citizenship and his readiness to host US radar on Czech soil, which is to form part of the American anti-missile defense system, overall he came across as an electable choice.
"In choosing between the two professors, I would slightly favor Professor Švejnar. Because Civic Democratic Party has too many constitutional positions tday and we do not need one-party rule. He is also more pro-European and less conservative than (the current president) Václav Klaus," deputy chairman of KSČM Jiří Dolejš told Aktuálně.cz.
Still seeing red after all those years
Speaking of one-party rule, the 90th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution was marked last Wednesday by a statement from KSČM's politbyro which was anything but repentant.
They called the 1917 coup "a first attempt to create a just society". They underscored its "influence on the spreading of social ideas across the globe". They remarked the revolution helped "found the Soviet Union which was a guarantor of peaceful development and whose downfall cleared the way for the triumphant capitalism to destroy the remains of the welfare state".
KSČM also assured everybody that the party remains committed to building on the revolution's legacy in its efforts to achieve new, deeply democratic, autonomous and humane form of socialism".
So we feared, one might be tempted to add.
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And yes, in case you missed the news, Sunday was the day when this year's Saint Martin's wine hit the market. Ask in your local bodega and get a taste of what is the Czech (well, mainly Moravian, really) answer to Beaujolais Nouveau craze.
