Comments on: Prominent local politicians put in custody

By: Xavier

Xavier — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:40:04 +0000

I agree with Juca, I’m from Barcelona an bribes from bussiness men to majors were and, still are the every day bread for us.
I don’t have (obviously) any data to support my arguments, but you just should look at how the city have changed since the olimpyc games, were before people were living now they build hotels, if you walked on that area, you’ll see how many “banners” neightbours have put on them balconies to protests against the major,etc.My grandma lives nearby the beach, in an old apartment and they want to “kick” her out from there because a construction of a new technology area has been planed…

And this is just Barcelona!!Imagine the rest…Czech people, in my opinion, are too critics with themselves, and they only see them dirty clothes, which is good in my opinion because then they’ll improve.

Regards

By: Michal Kašpárek

Michal Kašpárek — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:56:16 +0000

Juca, I disaggree with your point #3. If you talk to people involved in local politics, you will soon find out that corruption is a major problem of our country. Simply put, it is a status quo with roots deep down in the structures of Czech politics.

A week ago, an insider published an article in magazine Lupa, discussing some shocking (well, not for me) dimensions of corruption in the IT business: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.lupa.cz/clanky/korupce-v-cesku/&sl=cs&tl=en – worth reading!

Of course, the case of the mayor of Žabovřesky may be a signal that no corruptionist is safe. I hope he is not the last one to be arrested.

By: Juca

Juca — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:19:52 +0000

While most of the readers of this blog (or most of Czech people, for that matter) see this case as sad news, I see this as a good one. As a Brazilian, I’m used to see this kind of thing happening in my home country all the time, but nothing happens to those politicians. So, the good thing I see in this note is:

1) The guy is arrested while investigation is being done (may sound trivial, but try to read some news from Brazil and you’ll see what I mean)

2) The businessman himself was collaborating with the police (ie: he is not used to pay bribes in his other projects)

3) I read somewhere else that it’s one of the biggest scandals involving mayors in more than 20 years (ie: it doesn’t happens too often)

4) I also read somewhere else that they both are being expelled from ODS (ie: the party isn’t trying to cover/hide the actions of their members)

That being said, I would add that this kind of thing happen from time to time everywhere in the world. The difference is in how we handle such cases.