Prague, March 9 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman gave way to his vengefulness in his inauguration speech on Thursday and tainted the solemn event by latent settling of personal accounts, the Vaclav Klaus Institute (IVK), established by Zeman’s presidential predecessor, has written on its website.
It was inappropriate of Zeman to make unnecessary lash-outs at the media in a part of his presidential message, IVK board member Ivo Strejcek wrote, adding that the president chose a wrong genre.
Zeman, who was re-elected president in January, made a speech within his inauguration ceremony at Prague Castle on Thursday.
Strejcek writes that Zeman mentioned neither the country’s future nor this year’s centenary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia in his speech.
“He did not comment on the crisis of values faced by the West European civilisation of which we are part, but spoke about magnate Zdenek Bakala in his live-broadcast speech. In this respect, Zeman lost control of himself once again and failed to understand that inauguration speeches are a genre different from, let’s say, a discussion meeting with citizens in [the city of] Ostrava,” Strejcek wrote.
He wrote he could not see any strong moment, serious idea or contemplation in Zeman’s speech which he would try to address to the nation.
The speech did not correspond to the solemn and serious character of either the event or its venue or the responsibility the president was taking over.
“It was an undignified, unfortunately often also denigrating picture,” Strejcek concluded, referring to Zeman’s public appearance on Thursday.
In his speech in Prague Castle’s Vladislav Hall, Zeman sharply and extensively attacked businessman Zdenek Bakala, the media belonging to Bakala’s Economia publishing house and also Czech Television (CT), which is a public corporation.
He positively assessed his visits to Czech regions and meetings with citizens during his first term of office and said he would continue doing what he has done so far.