Paroubek criticises Slouf for violating the CSSD congress's resolution by lobbying for the re-election of President Vaclav Klaus, candidate and honorary chairman of the senior government Civic Democrats (ODS). However, even though Slouf leaves the party, nothing will change for Paroubek as Slouf's influence does not depend on his membership in the CSSD, Kolar says. Those of the Social Democrats who are linked to Zeman, former CSSD chairman who left the party after disputes with Paroubek last year, will Czech CSSD discusses apology to voters for defectors ...
Altner's billion-crown claim without chance to succeed-Czech CSSD ... listen to Slouf anyway no matter if he is dismissed from the party ranks.
The others who regard Slouf "a real devil" now already will not change their opinion either, Kolar notes. Paroubek can thereby only cast negative light on his party. "The fact that exactly such crooks like Slouf can achieve immense influence in the CSSD is not dependent on whether the party is presently chaired by Milos Zeman or Jiri Paroubek," Kolar writes. CSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek should apologise to former deputy minister Vera Jourova, who has been exonerated of a bribery suspicion, if he means his call for political decency seriously, Martin Zverina writes elsewhere in Lidove noviny (LN) today. He recalls that the Social Democrats recently called on other political parties to behave decently and warned against the abuse of fabricated political affairs. This is why Paroubek should apologise to Jourova for accusing her of having entered the CSSD out of mere expediency since she had nothing, but a life-long trauma from her CSSD membership, Zverina points out. Jourova was suspected of taking a bribe from a gang around Zdenek Dolezel, former head of two CSSD PMs' office, within the preparation of a fraudulent drawing of subsidies from the EU funds for a reconstruction of the chateau in Budisov, south Moravia. Her prosecution was halted these days. Only a court will decide to what extent the whole case was fabricated, yet it is clear now already that Jourova had no share in it, Zverina writes in LN. Thanks to the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR), even the government Civic Democrats (ODS) have started to realise that lustrations and anti-communism can turn against them, Petr Uhl writes in Pravo today. He comments on the recent release of the files of the former Communist military counter-intelligence service (VKR) in which a number of politicians, including ODS and CSSD deputies figure. Uhl writes that the files include many people who were just being checked by the VKR and did not collaborate with it. Moreover, many confidential collaborators with the former communist security services and secret police (StB) were rather victims than villains, he adds. However, it seems that not courts, but the "class instinct of USTR head Pavel Zacek and his aides" decides about the guilt, Uhl says. He points out that everybody, even a member of a criminal organisation or ODS members who are crushing their political opponents by lustrations, should have the right to legal protection. The lustration law from October 1991 bans former top Communists functionaries and former Communist secret police (StB) collaborators from high political and economic posts. At present, Zacek' institute is replacing StB by its conviction that it is interpreting all facts correctly and its cunning violations of law, Uhl says. If CSSD deputy Pavel Ploc, listed in the published VKR files, turns to a court, he has a chance to succeed also over the personal data protection. The ODS deputies, though they gave consent with the release of their files, would have the chance too, along with thousands of artists, athletes and other people whose names have appeared in the released files of the former communist security services and StB, Uhl concludes in Pravo.
(Ceske Noviny)
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