Prague - Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said his tenure as the head of the government and the chairman of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) would likely end, should the incumbent president Václav Klaus, the party chairman emeritus, fail to win another term in office next month.
"If Klaus is not re-elected, it is going to be a political failure of sorts and that will undoubtebly threaten my position as the Civic Democrats´ chairman as well as the coalition government. I do not claim it will have a direct impact on the coalition but it will certainly directly affect me," explained Topolánek.
Making sure he did not sound defeatist in an exclusive interview for Aktuálně.cz, the embattled PM stressed he was convinced of Mr. Klaus's impending victory in the ballot, to be held on February 8th at the joint session of the two chambers that make up the Czech parliament.
Topolánek has no doubts that his party colleagues will be united in extending the current president's stay in office. Not only was Klaus consistent in his views, said Topolánek, but he was also well known to everybody, unlike Jan Švejnar who allegedly falsified some of the data in his CV to look better.
Topolánek considers Klaus a bigger patriot, too: "No other Czech politician knows the Czech Republic from the inside better than Václav Klaus."
Vote according to your conscience, please
Topolánek also stressed he would do his best to prevent the presidential vote to be made public, as the Social Democratic Party called for last week.
He believes a secret ballot is a best guarantee of a fully democratic vote. According to him, it should be the individual legislator who decides in line with his beliefs, not the party he or she belongs to. On top of that, the secret ballot is stipulated by the Constitution.
Topolánek´s argument has been supported by the Green Party leader Martin Bursík who pointed in a public TV debate on Sunday that secret ballot actually gives lawmakers greater freedom to vote according to their conscience, instead of blindly following the party line.
People want Klaus, or do they?
If electing the president was up to the citizens of the Czech Republic, out of the two presidential candidates more people would vote for Václav Klaus, a survey showed last week.
In an exclusive public opinion poll done for Aktuálně.cz by experts from Palacký University in Olomouc, Klaus came out a winner when 54.77 people said they would vote for him if they could. 1070 people participated in the survey, done between Monday and Thursday in three cities Prague, Brno and Bruntál.
Interestingly, Jan Švejnar won the hearts of participating Praguers (54 per cent), while Václav Klaus scored better in Moravia: people in Bruntál gave him 57 per cent of their imaginary votes and the inhabitants of Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague, gave him a landslide victory of 63 per cent.
However, a different survey, done for the Právo daily by the STEM company last week, claimed Mr. Švejnar would beat the incumbent in a direct popular vote with 52 per cent of votes collected nationwide.
