Final Word from Thursday, April 19, 2012
Starting a new political party is a financial nightmare, esp.
if you don't have the likes of Vít Bárta, Tomáš Hrdlička,
Roman Janoušek, Richard Háva or Zdeněk Bakala helping to
foot the bill. Karolína Peake is promising to have an
absolutely transparent party, which would be nearly a
historic first in Czech politics. Such a strict credo would
mean changing the way VV does things at the ŘSD highway
department. It would also mean forgetting about tapping
the meal-voucher industry again (or should we say
squeezing?). To get an idea of what political life without
money is like, Peake's budding party could look to Jiří
Paroubek's Left 21. It launched a clever ad campaign but
has too little money to make a real dent, now that Hrdlička
and Janoušek have reportedly written Paroubek off. If Peake
wants a clean party, it's only future might lie in forcing all
the other parties to come clean too. Since that is unlikely,
the cleverest Peakers will start looking for ways to become
useful to ODS, TOP 09 or ČSSD, even as they found their
new party.[Czech Republic Věci veřejné Public Affairs]
Glossary of difficult words
to foot the bill - to pay the costs, to provide money;
credo - a statement of the beliefs or aims that guide someone's actions;
to tap - to obtain money or information from someone;
to squeeze - to put pressure on someone in order to obtain something;
budding - just beginning and showing promising signs of continuing;
to make a dent - to make meaningful progress;
to come clean - to be completely honest; to keep nothing hidden.