Prague - "Scapegoat, victim, foot soldier, toy" - all these nicknames and plenty more were given to Jana Bobošíková, a fresh nominee for the Friday's presidential race, by Aktuálně.cz readers in an online interview today.
The Communist Party has chosen European parliament deputy Jana Bobošíková as their candidate for the second round ballot, saying Jana Bobošíková has all they require a presidential candidate to have.
"We have set about 5 basic questions and Ms Bobošíková answered all of them to our satisfaction. Her performance and articles written in past proved she held the same views even before we "investigated" her," Communist MP Václav Exner said yesterday, the last nomination day.
Some believe the Communists have had enough of being ignored by the other political parties and want to play a bigger role than they have been so far. Head of a fringe party Politika 21 Jana Bobošíková (43) points out herself: "Everybody seems to be fighting for their votes now," and that is precisely what seems to be pleasing the Communist leaders.
Who is Jana Bobošíková
- journalist who turned into a politician
- involved in a political conflict in public service television called "Czech TV crisis" in 2000. A number of Czech TV employees rebelled against then TV Director Jiří Hodač accused of being too close to Civic Democrats´ leader Václav Klaus. Jana Bobošíková stood behind Hodač and the battle for the control of the public service broadcast resulted in pirate broadcast of the "rebels´" and the official news bulletins. The TV crisis ended with Hodač and Bobošíková leaving their posts
- founder of a fringe party Politika 21
- member of the European Parliament
Radar base split
The main reason why the Communist MPs turned down the support of Jan Švejnar in the next presidential vote is the contentious issue of the U.S. missile defense shield to be placed in the Czech Republic.
The anti-radar Communists require their candidate to have a firm stand against the base, which Jan Švejnar, including his supporters the Greens, refused to take.
Jana Bobošíková, who served as an adviser to Václav Klaus in 2000, proposes "Czech Republic build radar at its own expense and not to become a superpower's serf."
Not ashamed
Most of the questions of the Aktuálně.cz readers touched on the fact she had been nominated by the Communist Party, accusing her of "just wanting to be visible".
She openly defended the party as having been democratically elected adding ex-communists happen to be members of nearly all the parliamentary parties. "Perhaps it is much better to get nominated by a party that does not pretend to be anything than by some one who disguises his past," she explained to the readers.
There is one issue Jana Bobošíková apparently shares her view with Jan Švejnar. In spite of being a vocal critic of the EU administration, she still believes in gradual EU´s expansion and absorption of non-European countries like Turkey, possibly even Morocco. "The European Union is a territory bordered by ideas, not continents," adds Bobošíková.
Klaus made stronger
Given the present split between the supporters of the other two presidential candidates president - Václav Klaus backed by the ruling Civic Democrats and newcomer Jan Švejnar supported by the Greens and Social Democrats - Jana Bobošíková´s nomination is said to indirectly support the re-election of incumbent Klaus, as he may be the only one to make it to the second round.
She herself refuses the theory of supporting Klaus´s re-election, arguing her motivation is to unbalance the current mafia-like acting of Czech MPs and senators.
"I will attempt to diminish the confrontational and nervous atmosphere that we all witnessed last week," says Bobošíková in the Aktuálně.cz online interview.
Nevertheless, she sees her chances to succeed in tomorrow's presidential battle as very low.
"All I want is to get a chance to have a say in the presidential election," says Bobošíková in the interview without giving any specifics. Whatever she means by that, we will have to wait for tomorrow.
Read more about last week´s presidential election:
LIVE ONLINE - Czech lawmakers elect President I
LIVE ONLINE - Czech legislators elect President II
