Final Word from Thursday, July 2, 2026

Jan Urban, a former dissident, told Czech TV in a profile of Pavel Rychetský three years ago (at 35 minutes) that Rychetský was one of the first who understood and admitted after the revolution that the faction led by Václav Havel had lost and that no reckoning with the past would occur. "The Havel faction decided very quickly for negotiations that end up somehow," Urban said, "and then the nomenclature people from the Forecasting Institute that I really didn't care for stepped in." Urban dropped out of politics, while Rychetský, in Urban's words, went on to serve, and often with people he didn't like. Rychetský said he did it because he was convinced it would open the way for him to reach his biggest goal in life - the Constitutional Court. He led it for 20 years until Aug. 2023. Instead of retiring quietly, he's now one of the highest-placed critics of the Babiš-led coalition and spoke last week of the possibility of early elections if Andrej Babiš and Petr Pavel can't reach an agreement about the Nato summit. Rychetský, it seems, is admitting what the Havel/Pavel faction would consider defeat this time and giving advance notice of what its next step might be. [ Television Poslední mohykán Ankara Turkey ]