Kateřina Perknerová: Prague as a government laboratory
But the most important commitment was that he would behave differently from the cabinet led by Andrej Babiš. By this, government people did not mean only the chaos and micromanagement of the covid pandemic or the favor of the authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán, but the overall concept of public administration, which, according to them, shook people’s confidence in politics as such.
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At first, it seemed that under the baton of the noble Petr Fiala, the coalition of five would succeed in fulfilling its ideas about governance. But then came the war in Ukraine and many things began to fall apart in the style of the proverbial house of cards. It mainly concerned the budget deficits, which are almost identical to those under the ex-Minister of Finance Alena Schillerová from ANO.
It did not excel in comprehensible communication about the energy measures, which were supposed to help manage double-digit inflation. Ceilings on the prices of electricity and gas were unacceptable at first, only to become the only effective medicine after a few months.
If it wasn’t for Babiš
Nevertheless, it was still true that the ministers from different parties did not argue with each other, the foreign policy line was maintained without any hesitation and even in a difficult situation it was possible to open the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU with a meeting of European leaders at Prague Castle.
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Petr Fiala also tamed the extra-constitutional and other eccentric tastes of President Miloš Zeman, so that after a long time all top constitutional institutions spoke with one voice. Zeman’s occasional veto does not change this, as the coalition has enough MPs to reject it.
It is all the more surprising that the five governing parties did not know how to cope with the post-election situations in Prague. After nine weeks of futile negotiations, representatives of the ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL, i.e. the three bloc Together, announced that an agreement with the Pirates was not possible, so they would set up a minority council.
At the same time, everyone knows that Prime Minister and ODS Petr Fiala was very keen on organizing on the basis of government principles. Perhaps not even because of construction and other metropolitan plans, but because it is a strong symbolic message to the citizens. There was always the most snobbery in the capital, which for many years was controlled by people like Roman Janoušek, Ivo Rittig or Michal Redl, who kept important politics on a short leash.
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After the fraternization of the ODS with the ANO movement in many cities, including Ostrava and Brno, it was important to show that nothing like this would happen in Prague. But it’s happening. There is no point in dealing with the details of the individual managers and their competences or the duration of the Pirates in the Alliance for Stability with Čižínský Prague itself. From the beginning, ODS negotiators wanted to cooperate with ANO, led by the pragmatic Patrik Nacher. And they may or may not have had any ulterior motives.
It is enough that their view on the development of Prague is practically identical. This perhaps scares Petr Fiala the most. The alliance with the Pirates and the People’s Party at the government level is artificial, because it is only held together by aversion to Andrej Babiš, but no ideological glue. If it weren’t for Babiš, a large part of the ODS would rather join the ANO movement than with entities that are looking for progressive taxation and the green share as a way out of the energy crisis. In the future, this contradiction can shake not only the government, but especially the voters’ trust in it. Prague is a laboratory.
The author is an editor and commentator for the Daily