Page 60 - bne magazine March 2017 issue

ARTS
60 I CULTURE bne March 2017 & PEOPLE
AP Photo/Armando Franca
The ‘Czech Trump’ feels his time has come
Robert Anderson in Prague
Controversial Czech President Milos Zeman is poised for a momentous 2017. On March 10 the 72-year-old is widely expected to announce that he will stand for a second and final four-year term next January, an election where he looks unlikely to face any serious challenger.
The following month Zeman’s campaign will receive a huge boost when he is expected to visit Donald Trump in the
White House, his first official visit there. The onetime Social Democrat claims to be the only European head of state to have backed Trump before he won the US presidential election. When the refugee exodus resumes across the Mediterranean this summer, Zeman will once again be at the forefront of those warning of the Islamic threat to Europe.
Come October another populist, Finance Minister Andrej Babis, the “Czech Berlusconi”, looks certain to win the general election, providing Zeman with a partner to refashion the Czech political landscape – and potentially give him a wider opening to strut on the diplomatic stage.
Hospoda vs kavarna
Zeman takes pride in being called the “Czech Trump”, though he is hardly a political outsider: he was prime minister from 1998- 2002 as leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), and has been the leading leftwing politician in the country since
the restoration of democracy in 1989, even if his socialism has always been more a matter of branding than conviction.
www.bne.eu
But like Trump, he has a reputation for outrageous public com- ments and behaviour, which opponents argue have degraded Czech political culture. He insults other politicians and particularly journalists, drinks and swears in interviews, and makes “alt-fact” claims that he refuses to disavow.
Like other populists, he has deliberately divided the country, backing the “real people” against the out-of-touch elite. In the Czech context, he has labelled this divide as one between the Czech hospoda (pub) and the Prague kavarna (café).
He won the country’s first direct presidential election as an inde- pendent in 2013 based on his support in small towns, among the older, less well-off and educated voters, many of whom feel hardly better off since the collapse of communism a quarter of a century ago. But to Prague’s liberal elite, he is a despised embar- rassment. With his potato-shaped head, rumpled suits, sham- bling walk, chain smoking and regular drunken episodes, he has become the butt of cartoonists and internet memes.
Like Trump, he has also become notorious for his comments against Islam and in support of Russia – views that he feels have now been vindicated by Europe’s populist wave. Moreover, he too has murky personal and financial ties with the Kremlin that have led to accusations that he is Vladimir Putin’s puppet.
Seeking an enemy
Zeman has form on the Middle East. He was always pro-