Jan Fischer is the human face of ‘Klausism’.
With Jan Fischer leading in the polls for president, it is worth asking what we might expect from him if elected by the people. May we dare to hope that he would use his popular legitimacy to press ahead with, rather than to obstruct, as President Klaus has obstructed, the painful task of healing the maladies of Czech politics?
… Democracy ceases to be seen as the means by which civic society limits the power of the state and instead has become a service that the state provides to civic society. What little party competition remains is focused on the efficient and effective management of the state if you are lucky, in Germany for example, and on the systemic destruction of public value if you are not, in the Czech Republic for example. What distinguishes the Czech Republic from Germany then, is not the difference in relations between party and state, but rather in the quality of the service provided. The Czech Republic displays the symptoms of the cartel party-state in an advanced state of decline, a decline caused by the apathy of its citizens to the excesses of its ruling elite.
… I would argue that Fischer is the authentic face of a cartel party-state politician: a non-partisan, technocratic insider. His appeal to the mainstream parties must now be obvious to most readers. These parties would be reluctant jointly to choose Fischer under the parliamentary election of the president: It would appear far too cynical. But a non-partisan candidate facing direct elections dispenses altogether with the need to hide the lack of meaningful differences between them. Little wonder then that the mainstream parties appear to be doing their best to undermine the chances of their own candidates.
… So Fischer is an insider. He has always been on the inside, under communism as a party member and later as head of the state statistical office and then prime minister, and today as a political appointee to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. He is part of the system that has served the country so poorly over the last two decades. And unlike Jiří Dienstbier ml., who has quite exceptionally walked away from power, voting with his feet against the cartel party system exemplified by Prague municipal politics, Fischer has offered no grounds for the hope that he would stand up to the system.
Fischer's elevation from head state statistician to head of state would be a typical cartel party-state career path. The cartel party-state actively obstructs the rise to power of outsiders and uses public funds and privileges to do so. And yet it needs to create the impression that elections do matter, so it creates ‘new’ political parties and ‘new’ politicians. These are never more than proxies for the cartel, more or less well repackaged and recycled. And as a former party member, Fischer is weakened and perhaps even compromised. It is reasonable to suppose that he is not entirely his own man, making him an ideal head of a cartel party-state.
In my opinion, the essential task of the next president is to restore people’s belief in the value of their citizenship. In a parliamentary democracy, this means their belief in the reality of the competition between political parties, which behave as private legal subjects under the law and are treated as such by the state.
In my view, Fischer’s candidacy represents an attempt at managed adjustment by the cartel party-state, an attempt to present the human face of 'Klausism' and thereby preserve it for another few years.
Read more: http://blog.aktualne.centrum.cz/blogy/james-de-candole.php?itemid=16583
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