First impressions

MEP Jan Zahradil warned the delegates at ODS's congress on Sat. night that the headlines on Mon. would matter, because you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Zahradil's vision prevailed: Today's headlines are full of positive first impressions of the new ODS. Petr Nečas led a "revolution," the newspapers say, and the "godfathers" lost, esp. in Prague. It will now be up to Nečas to demonstrate that the puppets of one set of "bad godfathers" weren't merely replaced in the ODS leadership by the puppets of another set of "good godfathers." During hours of debate at the ODS congress, for example, no mention to our knowledge was made of ČEZ, the company many Czechs assume runs the government. Can the new ODS possibly survive without its "sponsorship"? Will this relationship be standardized under Nečas, or will he allow new ODS Vice Chairs Alexandr Vondra and Pavel Drobil to act as the go-betweens, now that Mirek Topolánek is gone? Nečas won't have long to make a first impression in this respect. [Czech Republic conference kmotr]