DEAD HEAT. With less than four weeks left before the Czech parliament meets in a joint session of its two chambers to elect the president, the race seems to be very, very tight.
Public seems to be just as undecided in their support between the incumbent head of state Václav Klaus and his challenger, Czech-American professor of economy at the Michigan University Jan Švejnar, as the very lawmakers who make up the electoral college.
In an exclusive public opinion poll done for Aktuálně.cz by experts from Palacký University in Olomouc, the incumbent Václav 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.
So what's all the talk of indecision? Well, just a day before we published the results of this poll, a different survey, done by the STEM company on Monday and Tuesday for the Právo daily, claimed Mr. Švejnar would beat the incumbent in a direct popular vote with 52 per cent of votes.
Besides, the survey was done a day before the Michigan University professor started his nation-wide pre-election campaign tour which took him to two Moravian cities, namely Zlín and Kroměříž, in its first leg.
However, it is not the people who choose the president in the Czech Republic, but their representatives in the parliament. And they seem to be playing by their own rules, which allowed negotiators from the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) to announce last week, that they have secured enough votes among the opposition Social Democratic (ČSSD) lawmakers to guarantee Mr. Klaus, the party chairman emeritus, another five years in office.
Although immediately disputed by various sources from within the ČSSD, the claim prompted several lawmakers, most prominently ex-Minister of Health David Rath (ČSSD) to call for the February presidential ballot to be made public, instead of secret as stipulated by the constitution.
That does not seem to be likely though. Even the Green Party leader Martin Bursík, whose party originally came up with the idea of fielding Mr. Švejnar as a candidate, is not convinced the bigger transparency is necessarily better. As he said in a public TV debate on Sunday, secret ballot actually gives lawmakers greater freedom to vote according to their conscience, instead of blindly following the party discipline.
OK, but what about the accountability of the lawmakers, who were elected by... ehem ...the people? Hmmm, let's change the topic.
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The Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek had a busy week, indeed. Meeting Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer in Vienna on Monday (to hear some tough words on failing to curb the immigration wave after the expansion of Schengen zone) and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk in Prague on Thursday (to fine-tune the strategy for further rounds of negotiation about possible stationing of the US military bases in the two countries) still left him with enough time to create yet another uproar.
This time, he landed himself in trouble for calling his own nation not too brave, to put it mildly. In fact, why don't I quote him? "(Czechs) usually see everything in negative light and when something happens, they get shit scared," Mr. Topolánek said in a newspaper interview. His remark then quickly took on a life of its own and prompted representatives of the far-right Nationalist Party to file a criminal complaint against the PM for allegedly committing the crime of defaming a nation, race, or belief.
Not even the most corrupt and insane journalist could possibly level such a charge against the Prime Minister. Especially, since the media has had enough time to get used to his brazen ways. President Klaus once called him "false and empty". That was way off, I think. He seems to be very honest in speaking his mind (not too good for a politician) and I also don't see him as empty. He seems to be very full. Of what exactly? You be the judge, but he could certainly name it best.
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While women politicians continue to be an endangered species in the Czech Republic, Czech female athletes made a strong showing in the latest Sportsperson of the Year poll, organized annually by the Sports Journalists' Club.
The 20-year-old speed-skating sensation Martina Sáblíková came out an overall winner in last Saturday's ceremony and one can understand why. She got her first gold medal from a major tournament last year when she won the European Championship in Collalbo, breaking outdoor world record time on both 3.000 m and 5.000m track and than did it again at the World Championship in Salt Lake City.
Fittingly, she won the 3.000 m race at the European Championship in the Russian city of Kolomna on the very day she got the Czech Sportsperson of the Year award.
The runner-up in the poll was Barbora Špotáková, 26-year-old javelin thrower who shockingly took the gold medal at the 2007 World Championship in Osaka, breaking the Czech record twice in the course of the final.
And the third best athlete of the year 2007 in the Czech Republic, according to the sports journalists, was Šárka Záhrobská, 22-year-old alpine skier, who won the gold medal in slalom at the last year's World Championship in Åre, Norway.
The Olympic-winner in decathlon Roman Šebrle, who won the gold medal at the 2007 World Championship in Osaka, finished fourth, which was as high as the men reached in the poll this year.
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Call him Czech Sinatra, call him Czech Elvis, call him names, call him what you will, but there is no denying Karel Gott ceased to be you regular singer long time ago and took up the mantle of THE national artist.
And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the actual honour, bestowed upon him by the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia, whose obedient servant he undeniably was.
After breaking many hearts in the course of his fruitful career, spanning five decades and counting, he delivered a final blow last week, marrying his long-time girlfriend Ivana Macháčková, 36 years his junior, in Las Vegas. So - was it a gamble, or not?
