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It was supposed to be four in a row.
With some of the finest players in the NHL, the Czech hockey
team was poised to take home its fourth consecutive world
championship. But Russia made short work of it before the
medal round even got under way. Instead, neighboring Slovakia
walked away with the gold. It's been that kind of a month,
and the mood hasn't got much better now that the elections
are approaching. President Havel hasn't hid the fact that
he's hoping the Social Democrats will come out on top again,
only this time they will get it right when they go to form
a government. That means ruling party on one side, opposition
party on the other. No more of this co-habitation with the
hated Václav Klaus and his Civic Democrats. Havel has been
rankled by the lack of any real opposition in the government
over the last four years. Naturally he blames Klaus, whom
he thought he had cornered in the last election, for selling
out his party just so he could keep his own personal tabs
on power. Premier Zeman also figures highly in the sellout,
especially now that he's been trashing the new leader of
his own party, Vladimir Spidla. If Klaus wins the premiership,
Zeman figures he has the best shot at succeeding Havel next
year. The president has no more use for Zeman than he does
for Klaus and would prefer that his job go to someone more
sensible, like his good friend Michael Zantovsky. But Zantovsky
was kicked out of the Coalition Party just as the campaign
was getting underway and has had to settle for plugging
Henry Kissinger's new book at the incredibly commercial
World of Books exhibition in Prague. Zantovsky, who the
premier once called "a f...ing midget", really
is a midget and could never get his hair right. The remaining
leaders of the Coalition have better hair, but otherwise
look and act too goofy to take seriously. The best they're
offering for a platform is something along the lines of
"We're not them." The Socials have been saying
the same thing these days in regards to their party's old
guard. Spidla, long seen as too deferential to the vulgar
Zeman, has come into his own lately. He has publicly declared
that none of Zeman's cronies and ex-Communists will have
a place in his cabinet. As for the current Communists, who
are hard on the heels of the Coalition for third place,
they are still insisting they didn't stand in line for toilet
paper back when they were running things. Meanwhile, Klaus'
Civics have been shoring up their dubious flat-tax program
with a promise to protect Czech national interests. These
interests are spelled out in a little booklet that calls
for curbing immigration, standing up to the EU and daring
Germany to pick a fight over war restitution. In other words,
being confrontational as usual. And Klaus is more combative
than ever now that the mayor of Prague, Jan Kasl, has resigned
from his position just before the election. He couldn't
take any more of Klaus' high-handed tactics, he declared.
Klaus shot back that Kasl, whom he had handpicked for the
job, had fallen under the control of several "whisperers"
who were out to get him. He had Havel and his people in
mind, and they decided to humor Klaus by inviting Kasl to
Castle and whispering to him for the press. Eager to stay
on the front page, Klaus declared that he was the victim
of another Sarajevo. He was referring to the attempt by
several unhappy members of his party to oust him while he
was on a visit to Bosnia in 1997. The coup failed, but precipitated
the fall of his government and the victory of the Social
Democrats in the election that followed. Through all the
petty bickering the parties did manage to pull together
to honor the Czech version of the real Sarajevo, the assassination
that set off World War I. An exhibition got underway in
Prague to mark the 60th anniversary of the assassination
of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi henchman who apparently thought
he was so loved by the Czech people that he would ride around
in an open car with no escort. Two-British trained Czech
commandos tossed a bomb in his car that May morning and
that was the end of Heydrich, who had chaired the infamous
Wannsee Conference before coming to Prague. The event was
hailed as an act of courage, but a questionable one to say
the least. The assassins were tracked down, their family,
friends, two whole villages, some 5000 people in all liquidated
as the price of retribution. The outcome of the war was
changed only in that Heydrich was given a grand funeral
across stately Charles' Bridge in Prague instead of swinging
from the gallows in Nuremberg. It can be seen on film today.
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