A long post-election hiatus in the Czech Republic ended after a new government took office and pledged urgent action to tackle rampant Covid 19 infection rates, high inflation, soaring energy prices and a ballooning budget deficit.
Ten weeks after winning a general election, a five-party coalition led by Petr Fiala, the new prime minister, was sworn in by Czech president Milo Zeman, who urged it to do something useful amid the dire warnings of an imminent crisis in the central European country.
Zeman, whose ill-health and long hospitalization delayed the government's inauguration, issued a rally call at a presidential retreat in L ny Castle in rural Bohemia, after which Fiala laid a wreath at the grave of Tom Garrigue Masaryk, founder and first president of Czechoslovakia.
The easiest thing to do would be to wish you success, but that is not very specific, Zeman told the 18-member new cabinet, all of whom had undergone Covid tests before being allowed to participate. I would like to wish you something useful to leave behind. It sounds obvious, but it is not obvious. Fiala, a 57-year-old former political science professor, becomes Czech Republic's 13th prime minister since its formation in 1993 after Czechoslovakia s dissolution. He replaces Andrej Babi a billionaire former oligarch who has been positioning himself to run for the Czech presidency when Zeman's term ends in 2023 after his populist government was defeated in last October's poll.
Fiala, leader of the Civic Democrat party ODS and head of the two-bloc coalition's biggest faction, Spolu Together promised not to waste any time in addressing the country's huge problems. A lot of things in our country have been neglected, he said. We want to work from the first moment. The first meeting of the cabinet on Friday afternoon was scheduled to consider whether to extend the state of emergency instituted by the outgoing government to tackle the Covid epidemic. The Czech Republic has one of the world's worst deaths from the disease, with more than 35,000 deaths from a population of 10.7 million.
Babi promises stern opposition, aided by his ownership of two daily newspapers and a popular radio station, will be short, with commentators saying that the honeymoon period will be short.
Albin Sybera, a Czech political analyst, said Petr Fiala is taking over the most difficult situation facing any post-communist prime ministers. He could easily find himself in a crisis situation whipped up by ANO Action for Discontented Citizens, Babi Party and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy, who remain formidable forces. The new prime minister, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, has already won a trial of strength by rebuffing Zeman's attempt to veto the appointment of the new foreign minister, Jan Lipavsk, on the grounds of poor academic qualifications and an allegedly critical attitude towards Israel.
In an apparent piece of petty score-settling, Vratislav Myn, head of Zeman's office, obliquely referenced the disagreement during Friday s ceremony by announcing the new foreign minister as Master I m sorry, bachelor Jan Lipavsky The slip was seen as a contrived allusion to Lipavsky having only a bachelor s rather than a postgraduate degree, a purported reason for the failed veto effort.
Analysts suggested that Zeman's move was aimed at retaining influence over foreign policy, which he has tried to orient towards support for the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.