Final Word from Tuesday, April 4, 2017
In the run-up one year ago to the special session in Parliament on the Stork's Nest matter, the center-right opposition attacked ČSSD and KDU-ČSL almost as much as they did Andrej Babiš himself. Chair Miroslav Kalousek of TOP 09 said that the important thing was for PM Bohuslav Sobotka to state whether Babiš's behavior was tolerable from a minister or not. If Sobotka were to state that it was tolerable, Kalousek said at the time, we would know that this is a government of systemic corruption. History is repeating itself a year later. Babiš is still in the cabinet, and he will again make a statement to Parliament about his assets. This time Sobotka is going out of his way to downplay the expectations. He nearly told DVTV that Babiš can't be ousted from the cabinet, because it would allow him to play the victim card in the elections. This is an election-time variation on the Wall Street theme that crooked bankers at major financial institutions are "too big to jail." [Czech Republic one-crown bonds Agrofert]
Glossary of difficult words
nondisposable - not designed to be thrown away after use;
run-up - the period preceding a notable event;
to downplay - to make something seem less important than it is;
to oust - to remove or kick out;
too big to jail - too important to send to prison for a crime; derived from the expression, "too big to fail," which refers to financial institutions and other corporations that are so large and interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the economy in general.