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?

Erik Best (of ‘Five Families’ fame) thinks not. Last week he wrote that the political and economic establishment wants Fischer for president because he represents a continuation of the Klaus era. I agree. Although not antagonistic and vain, I wonder whether Fischer is not merely a more personable, blander version of Klaus. I accept that he would hardly heap presidential scorn upon those who actively fight against corruption, as Klaus has done, but nor, I suspect, would he breathe new life into the enfeebled politics of this country by actively opposing the corrupt, for example by using his constitutional powers to request that the intelligence services look into concrete cases of suspected domestic corporate crime.

To understand why Fischer as president is likely to disappoint all those hoping for robust civic leadership from the next head of state, we need to appreciate the extent to which he exemplifies a democratic system in decay, a system in which, over two decades, the electorate has been effectively disenfranchised. I mean by this that regular elections occur but they have little to no impact on how power is exercised. The mainstream political parties have grabbed for themselves the legal and economic power of the state.

This is not just a Czech problem of course. The theory of the cartel party-state developed by political scientists Richard Katz and Peter Mair explains well how this disenfranchisement has occurred throughout the democratic world. And yet it does help us to see more clearly why a figure like Jan Fischer is so representative of this democratic enfeeblement.

The concept of the cartel party-state explains how parties collude rather than compete, and how they capture the resources of the state to ensure their own survival, to such an extent that it becomes difficult to distinguish between them and the state. As Katz and Mair explain, the goals of politics become self-referential, professional and technocratic. Election campaigns are designed to exclude the active involvement of citizens: capital-intensive, professional and controlled from central party headquarters, and of course largely funded by the state.

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.

We all sense that the substantive differences between the winner and loser of elections are minimal. This is because In fact the mainstream parties are never really out of power. The system is so built that it protects itself against outsiders. The mainstream parties use their control of the state’s resources to block the emergence of competitors. The independence of state institutions, regulatory organs, trade unions, even the judiciary, has been undermined by a system of client privileges granted in exchange for obedience and passivity. In the words of Katz and Mair, the state has become an ‘institutionalized support structure rewarding insiders and excluding all alternatives.’

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 ‘non-partisan’. His popular appeal seems to be based upon a feeling that he is ‘above’ the conflicts of political parties. This overlooks the fact that these conflicts are largely bombastic. It also overlooks the fact that, as caretaker prime minister, his government was nominated and controlled by the mainstream parties. He was a pliant prime minister and did nothing to slow down an accelerating political sclerosis. He was already captured by the cartel party-state, which is why he was appointed in the first place.

So Fischer is a technocrat. The cartel party-state as we have seen is managed by professionals who have made politics their business. They provide a service to the electorate and in deference to voters, a semblance of competition of ideas and policies between the parties they represent. The colourful displays of partisan dispute offered by the likes of David Rath, Mirek Topolanek and Miroslav Kalousek help to preserve the appearance of choice between competing political parties. But it is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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.