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In his final New
Year's address as president, Václav Havel agreed that the
breakup of Czechoslovakia
ten years ago was the right thing to do. His only regret
was the lack of a referendum among the people, and the
businesslike way the operation was carried out among the
politicians (himself included). And that was basically
it. He offered no assessment of his 13 years in office,
only his belief that the next president would be a wise
and responsible person. Havel could well be long gone before
the country finds out who that person will be. Parliament
and the Senate failed to elect his successor in two rounds
of voting, with the odds-on-favorite, Senate president
Petr Pithart, getting bested by former premier Václav Klaus
during the first round. The candidate for the ruling Social
Democrats never had a chance in the first place and dropped
out early on, as did the Communist candidate. That left
the door open to a rematch in the second round between
Klaus and the man who succeeded him as premier, Miloą Zeman.
The last time these two antagonists squared off they ended
up striking a deal akin to "You get the north side, I get
the south side." Anxious to head them off this time around,
the Populists and Independents nominated Senator Jaroslava
Moserová for the second round. A respected translator and
former president of UNESCO, Moserová's only real disadvantage
was, well, her weather-beaten look. Important was she had
the votes in the Senate and that would be pivotal in stopping
both Klaus and Zeman. Klaus, who still prefers to be called
the Professor, could count on the rock solid support of
his party, the Civic Democrats. Zeman had no such luxury
with the Social Democrats and quickly went about showing
people why he is nicknamed the Badger. While the Professor
roamed the halls of Parliament, the Badger turned the office
of one supporter into a den and began making promises to
everyone who walked into it. He even consorted with the
Communists, who saw Zeman as their ticket back to respectability.
Klaus, typically, looked down on the whole affair and promised
nothing, while Moserová made only one promise: If elected
president, the former doctor would stop smoking (which
no doubt would have been one promise too many for the chain-smoking
Zeman). As the second round of voting drew near, the Zemanites
within the Social Democrats began pressuring Premier ©pidla
to stop his anti-Zeman charade and openly support the man
who had made his career. But ©pidla and the rest of the
leadersip would only admit that he was the official candidate
of their party and nothing more. Without their backing,
Zeman would have no chance. And he didn't. When the first
votes were tallied, Klaus had beaten him in Parliament
and Klaus and Moserová together womped him in the Senate.
Zeman didn't even wait for the offical results to be read
and walked out of the room sulking. He probably couldn't
bear the thought of the poker-faced Lubomír Zaorálek,
the Speaker of Parliament and chief anti-Zemanite for the
Social
Democrats, announcing his defeat. For the second and third
tallies, Klaus was unable to overcome Moserová's block
of Senate support and the second round ended without a
president being elected. The question now is how to proceed
from here. Should there be a third round of voting, the
Civic Democrats would still feel bound to Klaus, even though
he failed to make it through in the first two rounds. The
Zemanites could shift their support to Klaus just to pay
back ©pidla and Company, but neither they nor the Communists
have any love for the man they could consider responsible
for most of the country's ills. Although direct elections
are a possibility, nobody can agree on when to do it, how
to do it, and so forth. The only thing clear is that when
Havel leaves office in early February, there will be no
president, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. For
the first time in the history of the Czech people, the
election of the president isn't a done deal. Even Havel,
for all his democratic sensibilities, had nurtured a cult
of personality that guaranteed his election without any
real debate. It harked back to the days of the legendary
Masaryk and even the Communists. But finally, democracy
has come to the Castle, even if in limited form. And that
wasn't the only mark of a new beginning for Czech politics.
The day before the second round of voting began, the Senate
voted to strip Vladimír ®elezný of immunity from prosecution.
The director of TV Nova has been eluding charges that he
bilked investors for several years but swore that his election
to the Senate had nothing to do with gaining immunity.
The moment the Senate took up the issue, however, he stood
before his colleagues and pleaded for it in vain. It doesn't
look like a last-minute presidential pardon is in the offing,
either. Havel took the occasion of his New Year's address
to warn against people like ®elezný using politics to
escape prosecution. As for all those other people who did
get
controversial pardons, some of them personally connected
to Havel, all the president would say is it's nobody's
business but his own.
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