Czech Politics Unczeched

Sitting here in New Jersey -- wrestling with our own US train wreck - health care reform - it's hard for me to criticize the politics of another country. Or the voters here or in the Czech Republic who, it seems, are too easily led or too apathetic or too uninformed -- or all three.

But truthfully -- if someone were trying to write a political whodunit novel--- he or she couldn't possibly imagine the current Czech political disaster. For those who haven't been following the debacle --it started last spring in the middle of the Czech Republic's 6 month rotating Presidency of the European Union. CSSD (center left Social Democrats) called a vote of confidence in the lower house of Parliament which failed and brought down the center right government led by ODS (Civic Democrats). A caretaker government of supposedly apolitical technocrats was appointed to serve until early elections set for October. About a month ago the election campaign began. Then a deputy challenged the early elections in the Czech Constitutional Court, claiming he had the constitutional right to serve a full term. The Court ruled in the deputy's favor. Chaos ensued. Politicians hatched another plan for elections in November but then that was torpedoed when CSSD withdrew its initial support. Are you dizzy yet? Now no one knows what to expect.

I've seen all kinds of unsourced editorials and columns from Prague about which party or corporation or lobby influenced the other and why CSSD (The Social Democrats) changed its stance on early elections and what the true motive of the Czech Constitutional Court might be etc. etc. I hope one of the more journalistically inclined newspapers or magazines or even TV operations has a crack team of investigative reporters hard at work to peel back the opaque political layers and get at the truth of what happened and why. Most importantly why!!! I'm returning to Prague in November to watch what I hope will be a big celebration for the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which ended Communism in then Czechoslovakia. But if this political circus is all 20 years of "democracy" has wrought --- Czechs themselves may well ask -- "why bother?"