Privatization fever

MP Vlastimil Tlustý, whom we've referred to before as one of the "privatizers," ran into a wall yesterday within ODS with his idea of joining some kind of ČSSD government. Tlustý has such a dire case of privatization fever that he doesn't even want to wait for early elections. As supervisory board chair at ČKA debt agency, he's already the top-ranking opposition member in the Špidla government. Participation in a ČSSD cabinet would be just a step away. But ODS has other ideas. Its goal seems to be to let Stanislav Gross hang himself and then to come to the country's rescue on a white horse. ODS Chair Mirek Topolánek once discounted the idea of a majority ODS government, but with US-DEU nearly gone and ČSSD dangerously close to the 5% obscurity level, a one-party ODS government now looks like a reasonable political goal. And then the privatization could really begin. Česká konsolidační agentura