• 20/11/2022
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Petr Fiala or do not underestimate the professor - Petr Fiala or do not underestimate the professor - not affect - investigative diary about influence and people<

Even a number of voters who celebrated the fall of Andrej Babiš on October 10 are worried about the victory of the Spolu coalition and especially the ODS. Eagerly awaited change brings uncertainty. What will come with Petr Fiala? Are we not facing harsh Anglo-Saxon neoliberalism? With an admixture of Hungarian-Polish homophobia? And the fight against political correctness according to Trump as a bonus?Petr Fiala aka Don't underestimate the professor - Petr Fiala aka Don't underestimate the professor - Not influential - investigative diary about influence and peoplePetr Fiala aka Don't underestimate the professor - Petr Fiala aka Don't underestimate the professor - Uninfluenced - investigative diary about influence and people

What can be expected from academician Fiala - a man who "always managed something" - is summarized in his political portrait. We first published it in the November magazine Neovlivní.cz, now we are unlocking it for the web as well.

Petr Fiala acts above all as a polished, serious academic. And he undoubtedly is. A highly educated conservative person who likes to emphasize respect for traditions. In a book interview with another intellectual from Brno, Miroslav Balaštík, he recalls that he comes from a traditional bourgeois family of the First Republic, where lunch was always served at exactly 12, when the bells started ringing. And coffee was drunk at exactly three o'clock. He didn't have a problem with it even as a teenager. And the jacket became a regular and popular part of his wardrobe from the age of fifteen.

But there is one problem: A conservative academic, even if he is very conservative, is usually respected. A very conservative politician can inspire fear in many people.

Mr. President

His work and passion is reading and writing books. He is successful, and not just as a theorist. This is another thing that Fiala likes to say about himself: Wherever he came, he always led something, he got to the top. At twenty-nine, he headed the political science department. In his forties, he became rector of Masaryk University in Brno, then advisor to the prime minister, minister of education, chairman of the ODS... So now it looks like the post of prime minister.

When he became the chairman of the ODS, many people underestimated him: an intellectual, a "cracker", an uninteresting speaker, a person without charisma... Such a person may act as a cleansing symbol for the ODS riddled with affairs, but he will not get it back to the top. And see.

According to political scientists, it was Petr Fiala's performance at the end of the election campaign that significantly contributed to the victory of the Spolu coalition. "What to say about that? Yes, he used to be bland and not very interesting. But now he simply gave it, he was able to do it, he gave the performance of his life, he surpassed himself," political scientist Josef Mlejnek Jr. from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UK assesses for the magazine Neovlivní.cz. "Perhaps this model suits him: 14 days where everything is at stake, total focus on peak performance."

Peter Fiala should definitely not be underestimated.

He was always leading or managing something. Even if he didn't want to: Even in elementary school and high school, he was class president.

Chairman of the ODS

When Petr Fiala became the chairman of the ODS in 2014, he announced its revival, a break with the "godfathers". The ODS had the worst electoral result in history – in the 2013 parliamentary elections, it received only 7.72% of the vote. It was a consequence of the reputation the party had acquired over the previous years: It was supposed to be riddled with corruption, controlled by mafia godfathers. And it had chairmen who resigned under the pressure of affairs.

There is no space to discuss the history of the ODS. It is enough to recall some names. Businessman Roman Janoušek was suspected of co-deciding on events in Prague for a long time through Mayor Pavel Bém. In the now legendary photo, Ivo Rittig was sitting with a five-thousand-dollar bill in his hand in the hall of the ODS congress in 2009. The former boxer and moneylender had an undoubted influence on the party's leadership at the time. And he won it again during the presidency of Petr Nečas through his secretary at the time, now his wife Jana Nečasová (Nagyová).

Petr Fiala or Do not underestimate the professor - Petr Fiala aka Don't underestimate the professor - Uninfluenced - investigative diary about influence and people

Rittig was suspected of a number of crimes, for example in relation to a Prague transport company. But he's only been in prison once so far: He got nine years for "theft of socialist property" when he actually robbed a grocery store in 1983-85.

And the presidents? Mirek Topolánek, whose closest associate was lobbyist Marek Dalík, later sentenced to five years for attempted fraud in the context of a giant state contract. Topolánek, who appears in another legendary photo: Naked in the villa of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi.

And Petr Nečas. He was already supposed to clean up the ODS and lead it out of the crisis. Quiet, reserved, honest, decent... But hey! His secretary and lover maintained lively contacts with the godfathers and, according to the already valid court verdict, misused military intelligence. And Nečas himself solved the political crisis in the party by offering three rebellious MPs "trafficking" in semi-state enterprises if they would give up their mandate.

In the aforementioned interview, Miroslav Balaštík asks in detail about "godfathers" and "traffickers". And Petr Fiala answers. As chairman of the ODS.

Godfathers? What kind of godfathers?

Fiala repeatedly emphasizes that she certainly does not want to trivialize anything, but subtly takes the initiative: Has Janoušek been convicted of something? Are we to believe the "everyone knows" talk? And Bém is remembered by many as the mayor under whom Prague prospered. The role of "godfathers" is overrated, he himself has never met anyone like that. And "traffickers"? It may not have been completely "morally ideal", but it didn't go beyond the boundaries of normal politics, that's just how politics is done, that's part of it too.

Petr Fiala summarizes in the interview: "... it's not okay to cast doubt on people I don't like, about whom someone heard or said something without a single proof. Just because, for example, the journalists decided that he was guilty. We have other institutions for that, and the presumption of innocence applies to everyone, including politicians, even if it's unpopular to say so."

From a conservative academic, one might expect a greater emphasis on the purity of politics. Dealing with the problem of "godfathers" as people "about whom someone has heard or said something" does not seem like a strong step towards the revival of the ODS.

"Petr Fiala simply has to zigzag," explains Josef Mlejnek. "The opinion that the Nagy case was a political coup against the ODS government, that 'traffickers' are normal or that 'godfathers' did not actually exist is common among convinced ODS voters. Although Fiala shows a more critical face to the wider public, it cannot afford to do so inside the ODS."

In this context, it is worth remembering that one of Fiala's closest collaborators is František Cerha, his political secretary and the secretary of the Petr Fiala Right Bank Institute. According to information from Neovlivní.cz, it was Cerha who already in 2013 bet on Petr Fiala as the future chairman of the ODS.

Cerha has been working for the ODS for many years, he was already a member of the election staffs led by ex-Minister of the Interior Ivan Langer. During the government of Prime Minister Petar Nečas, he helped with PR and media presentation, mainly of the Central Bohemian ODS, and often promoted the health topics of exposé Marek Šnajdr in the media. One of the trio of MPs who exchanged their mandate for "trafficking". And he also belonged to the narrowest circle of people who managed to figure out how to mediate the Nagyová case. Petr Fiala therefore has a very experienced advisor in this regard.

Yes, a conservative academic is not the same as a conservative politician.

Politician

9. November 2016, Petr Fiala wrote on the Twitter social network: "D. Trump's victory is a victory for those who are dissatisfied with the policy of half-correctness, multiculturalism, or extensive socials. programs."

Four years later, he wrote: “Trump lost to himself. He has visible successes, and very strong ones – economic, foreign policy, he was clearly on the side of the ethical conservative agenda (against abortion, gender ideology, climate activism, correctness), he changed the composition of the Supreme Court, etc. He was able to mobilize his voters, but also his opponents. Trump's populist and hateful narcissism made the difference between winning and losing in a divided American society.”

Akademik Fiala does not like Trump - he is a populist, a narcissist. But politician Fiala agrees with Trump on essential matters. And it announces a fight: With political correctness, multiculturalism, abortion, climate activism, gender ideology and large-scale social programs.

We can add to this the repeatedly expressed skepticism towards the European Union, the deep conviction that the only possible marriage is the "natural" one, i.e. between a man and a woman, the defense of Hungary and Viktor Orbán against the EU, the recently formulated doubt whether climate change is to blame person, or a photo from 2015 at the Hungarian anti-migrant fence, where he made it clear what he thought about accepting refugees.

And we have a relatively dense political program here. With a fundamental question: Is this still the program of a modern liberal European party?

What will happen to Fiala?

This year's elections had only one major theme: Will the opposition coalition defeat Babiš? And here you can find an answer to the question of why Fiala is coming.

For voters who wanted change, this time the programs of individual parties or their past were not so important. Even a liberal voter who, under other circumstances, would have considered the ODS program unacceptable at certain points, could vote for Spolu.

"The campaign largely lacked any supporting themes and by the end it basically boiled down to one thing - who (if anyone) will defeat Andrej Babiš. And the Together coalition appeared significantly more promising in this regard in all polls, so the bandwagon effect (herd effect) worked. Plus the end of the Spolu campaign was clearly stronger, Petr Fiala also gave a very solid performance in the debates," comments Pavel Ranocha from the Kantar agency for the magazine Neovlivní.cz.

Simply put: the "anti-Babiš" voter sometimes cast his vote for the Spolu coalition with "gnashing of teeth" and closed eyes, because especially the Pirates lost their breath very strongly with the elections approaching. Babis must be defeated. And then see each other.

So: What will come with Petr Fiala? Is it justified to fear that a socially unsparing policy of cuts will begin? And that euroscepticism and climate skepticism will also grow?

"The concern certainly has a real core. Already because the budget is in a desolate state and cuts must come," says Josef Mlejnek. "But I assume that Petr Fiala is very well aware that the insensitive policy of cuts in the past contributed to the fall of ODS governments. And that he will be careful.'

Political scientists also assume that Petr Fiala and the winning coalition are aware that 20% of the votes were "lost" this year and that to a large extent these were the votes of left-wing voters. They are not represented in the House of Representatives. Hard-line neoliberal politics could turn these voters into sympathizers of the only strong opposition in the future House. So the YES movement.

Petr Fiala is not alone in this. In some ways, his coalition partners will support him, in others they will hinder him.

For now, however, only one thing is certain: It would be pointless to underestimate Petr Fiala.


Petr Fiala

Source of preview photo: CNN Prima News

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