However, opponents of the direct election expressed fears of a possible success of Tomio Okamura, former head of the Association of Czech Travel Agencies, who did not rule out his candidacy. In opinion polls assessing presidential candidates, Okamura was placed second after former unaffiliated prime minister Jan Fischer, Kubik says.
He points out that the direct election will be pushed through eventually since legislators totally discredited the indirect polls by both houses of parliament in 2008 when they were threatening each other and various lobbyists had the last say.
Even strong opponents of the direct polls knew then that there was no other option, Kubik adds.
He says he is convinced that after the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, the Senate, the upper house, will also support the direct presidential election since the atmosphere in society requires it.
In spite of it, one real danger is in the funding of election campaigns. Politicians must not forget it and they must solve it in a special election law, Kubik points out.
"Otherwise even the direct presidential election will easily turn into a dirty farce in which he who loots the biggest sack of money wins," Kubik writes in conclusion.
Problems with Czech court experts in extremism can be eliminated if the expression of political opinions cannot be prosecuted, Martin Weiss writes in Lidove noviny (LN) today.
He comments on the case of expert Michal Mazel against whom Lucie Slegrova, a member of the far-right Workers's Party of Social Justice (DSSS), complained about bias, arguing among others with Mazel's Jewish origin.
Weiss admits that the objection about ethnic origin was unacceptable but it is at the same time unfortunate that the same attention was not paid to the other two objections, pointing to the exclusive position of court experts.
They stand somewhere between the state power and political activism and their importance is rising unhealthily, Weiss says.
"Unfortunately, this can be avoided only if we stopped prosecuting the expression of political opinions, even those that we do no like. And this will be very hard in a society that does not appreciate freedom of speech and whose state apparatus has managed neither to prevent extremism politically, nor to fight against extremist violence," Weiss writes in LN.
The late former Czechoslovak and Czech president Vaclav Havel may not appreciate the idea of placing his portrait on a new 10,000-crown banknote, which European Numismatic Association head Evzen Sknouril has proposed, Daniel Kaiser indicates elsewhere in LN.
He reminds that it is not usual in the West to put portraits of contemporary personalities on banknotes (unless they are kings) since they are perceived in the context of their time and their concrete opinions.
Havel, for example, was a supporter of the euro. Consequently, he might figure as "a silent promoter of the Czech crown" in a future referendum on the euro adoption, Kaliser notes.
Moreover, the vulgar part of the Czech nouveau riche usually pays with the highest-value banknotes, which Havel my not like either.
It ensues from all the initiatives that "if we want to immortalise Havel" in a way, it will be probably the best to rename the Prague-Ruzyne airport after him, Kaiser writes.
($1=19.919 crowns) Author: CTK
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