Jiří Dienstbier ml. and the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.



42 per cent of the Czech electorate are aged between 18-40 years old. The distrust of political parties is deepest among these voters. And it is getting deeper every day, thanks to the inability of CSSD, ODS and TOP 09 to step out of the shadow of their founders -Milos Zeman, Vaclav Klaus and Miroslav Kalousek.

CSSD spent the weekend becoming an extension of Milos Zeman. It removed the popular Jiri Dienstbier ml. from its leadership, and has surrounded its party chairman with Zeman’s allies.

ODS is pinning its hopes, or rather its fears, on Martin Kuba, a puppet of Vaclav Klaus with very little punch.

And TOP 09 is firmly back under the control of Miroslav Kalousek, after Karel Schwarzenberg’s splendid presidential hiatus.

In my opinion, the ousting of Jiri Dienstbier was as inevitable as it was unwise. He is more dangerous outside CSSD than in it, where he could have been more easily managed. Instead, the party has martyred him, at least in the eyes of the 42 per cent.

Dienstbier does not look like the kind of person who is easily discouraged. He will now leave CSSD, and use the considerable momentum he has gathered since his successes in the Prague and presidential elections to build a new party around himself and an anti-cartel agenda.

There has rarely been a better time to launch a new political party targeted at the 42 per cent. And there has rarely been a better leader for such a party. A public figure enjoying such high ratings in the polls cannot fail to attract sponsors, as well as many of the hundreds of thousands of those who voted for Karel Schwarzenberg earlier this year, and who now feel stranded.

Dienstbier is the right person to lead such an endeavour, not because he is left- or right-wing, but because he has proved his electoral value and demonstrated his independence of the cartel. His rejection by CSSD is the final rite of passage to the power base he has been working towards -his own.

His greatest asset is the fear and loathing he inspires in the ruling cartel. The more the establishment displays its distrust of him, the more it shows its fear. And the more it shows its fear, the more popular he will become with that part of the electorate disgusted by the cartel. This is Jiri Dienstbier’s badge of good faith with younger voters, and he should wear it, as a leader of his own party.

Be sure of one thing: The mainstream parties will now set aside their, in any case, largely fictional differences, in order to preserve their stranglehold on the common wealth of this country for a little longer. It is their last roll of the dice.

And the 42 per cent must do the same, setting aside their differences in order to build the first, real anti-cartel party around the only untainted young politician in the country with a proven ability to deliver votes.

Or the 42 per cent can wait another ten years, for the cartel finally to consume itself, having consumed everything else.