The Prague Post, December 13, 2007, Thursday

The Prague Post, December 13, 2007, Thursday

The Prague Post

U.S. economist could oust Klaus
As Jan Švejnar names a campaign team, parties debate backing him

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post

The only potential candidate to pose a threat, fledgling as it may be, to President Václav Klaus’ bid for re-election this February is still relatively unknown to a number of Czechs.Jan Švejnar, a 54-year-old Czech-American economist, has the support of the Green Party and is currently courting the Social Democrats and the Communists, yet a new Median poll finds that nearly half of Czechs have never heard of him. More problematic for Švejnar is that his backing in Parliament — whose 281 members decide on the next president — is weak.“Švejnar’s ideology is unknown; we only know that he’s been an expert for the World Bank,” says Charles University political analyst Zdeněk Zbořil. “I know he wants to be president, behaves well and speaks well, but that’s not enough for both chambers of Parliament.” Both the Social Democrats and the Communists are deciding this week whether to throw their support behind Švejnar. Meanwhile, Švejnar himself is deciding whether to run at all. Although he’s put together a five-member team of publicists, businessmen and political scientists to run his potential campaign, according to Mladá fronta Dnes, he has yet to actually announce his candidacy. In the midst of all such indecision, Klaus is still officially the only candidate for president.Unusual suspect Švejnar’s curriculum vitae, which runs 16 pages long, describes an accomplished man and well-regarded economist. In 1970, his family defected to the West and four years later, at the age of 21, he graduated from Cornell University in the United States with a degree in industrial and labor relations. Over the next five years he earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics from Princeton University. Several international fellowships, a professorship at the University of Pittsburgh, and a position as professor of economics at University of Michigan followed. In 1984, he also became a consultant to the World Bank, a post he continues to occupy. In 1990, he began his work, which he continued through 2005, as economic adviser to the Czech government. In 1991, he became chairman of Charles University’s Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences.Švejnar also works as chairman of the supervisory board of the bank ČSOB. He speaks Czech, English, French, Russian and Spanish.Svejnar did not respond to numerous Prague Post requests for an interview.President Švejnar?Of the 281 members of Parliament, 121 have already promised their vote to Klaus, who now only needs 20 more supporters in Parliament to lock down the presidency, Zbořil says. Švejnar has 16 supporters.“He practically has to gain support from [all] the Social Democrats and the Communists,” to win, Zbořil says.Although Social Democratic leader Jiří Paroubek called on the Communists to support Švejnar, it is unlikely that his own party will follow his lead. Zbořil says, however, that although it’s “very difficult to forecast what the Social Dems will do in this election,” it looks like they’ll probably split their vote between Klaus and his opponent. A STEM poll held last month shows that only slightly more than half of the Social Democrats support Švejnar. The rest want Klaus. The Social Dems are meeting Dec. 15 to discuss which candidate they will back.The problem, Zbořil says, is that Švejnar doesn’t have anything in common with the ideology of the Social Democrats; he is merely an anti-Klaus candidate.“He’s a left-orientated liberal, in an American sense. Something like a Democrat,” but otherwise “nontransparent,” Zbořil says.Parties other than the Civic Democrats are so divided that they cannot produce their own candidate, according to Zbořil. Because Švejnar represents no political party’s ideology but is running more or less as a foil to Klaus, he cannot rally the support he needs.“In my opinion, it is practically impossible for him to gain enough support,” Zbořil says. Only something like a political crisis or “Václav Havel on a white horse” will truly threaten Klaus’ chances at keeping the presidency, he says.In terms of the Communists’ decisions whether to support Švejnar, the STEM poll reports that the party is split roughly into thirds — one favoring Klaus, another Švejnar and a third undecided. The Median poll splits the Communist vote down the middle between the two candidates.“Passing a resolution to support Švejnar would not correspond with the opinions of the people affiliated with or supporting [the Communist Party],” says party spokeswoman Monika Hoření. “Similarly, the support of Klaus is not as some media try to portray it.”As for popular support, Median reports that only 15 percent of the public wants Švejnar to win. The fact that he has spent the majority of his life outside his native country is cited by poll respondents as his biggest negative quality. Švejnar says he spends about one week of every month in the Czech Republic, according to the Czech News Agency.