Mirek Topolánek ( ) (born 15
May 1956 in Vsetín
, Czechoslovakia
, now Czech Republic) is the former prime minister of the Czech Republic
and President of the
European Council. A member of the
Civic Democratic Party, he has been
chairman of the
center-right party
since November 2002, succeeding
Václav
Klaus, the current
President of the Czech
Republic.
On 24 March 2009, Topolanek announced his resignation, along with
his Government, after it lost a
no-confidence vote in the
Czech Parliament. He remained in office
until 8 May, at which point
Jan Fischer took office as an
independent Prime Minister
leading an
interim technical government .
Biography
Mirek
Topolánek attended a military high school in Opava
, where he
became a Socialistic
Union of Youth member which he claimed to be semi-obligatory
for future officer.
After
finishing he studied at Brno University of Technology
where he received an Ing. degree in mechanical engineering. In
1996 he won a scholarship for Training Course in Management of
small and medium enterprise (MIM) in Cyprus and also attended a
post-graduate Course in Corporate Management (Centre for Management
Training, Čelákovice CZ).
He entered politics by becoming a member of a post-communist
catch-all civic movement
Civic Forum in
1989, and has been a member of the
Civic Democratic Party since 1994.
Topolánek co-founded the engineering company VAE Ltd. in 1991 and
was a member of the VAE Inc. board of directors from 1996 to
2003.
Mirek Topolánek is separated from his wife Pavla Topolánková and
has two daughters, two sons and two grandchildren.His hobbies
include tennis, golf and rally driving. He likes books by
Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Kundera. He admires such political
personalities as
Winston
Churchill,
Margaret Thatcher
and
José María Aznar and
music by the Czech folk singer
Jarek
Nohavica as well as
Pink Floyd.
Political career
Topolánek was a member of the
Senate from 1996 to 2004 and
its deputy chairman from 2002 to 2004. Since June 2006 he has been
a member of the
Chamber of
Deputies. After the June parliamentary elections in 2006, which
produced a stalemate result (100 seats for left-leaning and 100 for
right-leaning parties out of 200 Chamber of Deputies members).
Topolánek was appointed Prime Minister by
Václav Klaus on 16 August 2006 and
introduced a unicolour government (nine members of the Civic
Democratic Party and six independents). This government (Topolánek
I) failed to gain confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, but he
continued to be caretaker Prime Minister until 9 January 2007, when
his second cabinet (
Topolánek II) was
appointed. He put together a
centre-right coalition government with the
Green Party and
Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party.
It finally gained confidence on 19 January 2007 (230 days after the
elections), thanks
to two
social
democratic deputies who abstained, thus effectively defaulting
to a right-wing government rather than the unstable situation
ongoing since the
June
2006 elections.
Involvement in the Anti-Missile Defence System
Mirek
Topolánek is an ardent supporter of the Bush administration's
proposed anti-missile defence system, which was vehemently opposed
by the Russians, and which the Obama administration has suggested
may not need to be built if Russia cooperates in convincing
Iran
, the country whose nuclear ambitions the defence
system is to protect against, to stop the development of its
nuclear programme and its support of terrorist organizations across
the Middle East.
Five Prime Minister's Priorities
Mirek Topolánek introduced the so-called "Five Prime Minister's
Priorities" in October 2007. It is a government statement which
includes 10 program areas, which consist of 190 projects of
Government’s Program Goals Through Electoral Term accepted by the
government. To facilitate orientation and communication with
citizens Mirek Topolánek has summarized the 10 program areas to
Five Prime Minister‘s Priorities: Healthy Public Finances, Modern
and Efficient State, Safe Citizen in a Safe Country, Removing
Barriers, Promoting Science and Education.
Fall of Government
On 24 March 2009, after four failed earlier attempts, the
opposition
ČSSD and
communists party succeeded in leading the
lower house of
the
Czech
parliament to a
no confidence
vote in Topolánek's government. The measure passed with 101
votes to 96 as four members of Topolánek's coalition (two of his
own party) voting with the opposition. After the vote, Topolánek
said that he would resign in accordance with the Constitution. He
confidently said: "We believe the president should also follow the
custom and appoint me to form a new government."
Several observers were surprised by the outcome of the vote.
In
addition, the European
Commission
stated that it had confidence in the Czech
Republic, and that the nation's EU presidency would remain
unaffected.
On 15 September, 2009, Topolánek resigned his seat in the Chamber
of Deputies after ČSSD announced a delay of proposed
snap election in October
2009.
Controversies
Topolánek has been criticised for his rhetoric, which occasionally
invokes memories of the
World War II
and
Nazi atrocities.
In August 2003
Topolánek called the programme of the competing Social Democratic
Party (ČSSD) to be a "osvětimská lež"
(Auschwitz
lie), a common expression in Czech which denotes
Holocaust denial. Topolánek's remark therefore implied that
ČSSD's program was a set of lies.
Further in June 2005, one year before the Parliament elections, he
said: "From my side, don't expect anything else than a
Night of the Long Knives. This
night simply comes." This actually meant that after the elections
of 2006, which he would win, he would make major personnel changes
in the government.
In March 2007 he sent to a journalist an
SMS
message beginning with: "Es kommt der Tag...", whichmeans "The day
will come...". This was used in the 1930s by the Sudetendeutsche
Party representing Germans in the former Czechoslovakia, and meant
that the day will come, when the
Sudeten
Area will become a part of Germany. Also in 2007, Topolánek was
criticised when he raised his
middle
finger in the
lower house. In
October 2008, Topolánek lashed out at a photographer who was taking
photographs of his 15-month-old son.
BBC
reported that at one stage Topolánek pushed the photographer
against a wall and threateningly asked why he was taking photos of
him
On 30 May 2009, the Italian police seized photos under suspicion of
a violation of privacy. One photo, according to world media showed
Topolánek naked at Villa Certosa (
Silvio Berlusconi's summer house) in May
2008. In the end, Topolánek admitted the naked man taking the sun
with topless women at Berlusconi's Villa Certosa was himself.
References
- Interview with Topolánek with info about his SSM
membership
- Topolánek složil poslanecký mandát
- Trestní oznámení na Topolánka: prý propaguje
nacismus
- David Irving a osvětimská lež; google translation of the page*"supporters of
the Nazi era "osvětimské lie" (i.e., denial of the existence of gas
chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau)"
- Article about Holocaust from Czech wiki;
translation:*"In many countries of the world
(including the Czech Republic) is preaching the theory of so-called
Osvětimské lies valued as a criminal offense."
- Topolánek pobouřil SMSkou bojovníky proti
nacismu (in Czech)
- http://www.radio.cz/en/article/111478
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/07/mirek-topolanek-czech-naked-photo
-
http://www.newser.com/story/61166/newspaper-prints-photos-of-naked-guests-at-berlusconi-villa.html
-
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/UK/Man-found-naked-was-Czech-ex-PM/articleshow/4629133.cms
- Topolanek nudo nel giardino della Villa e nei viali
bionde e brune mozzafiato. Corriere della
Sera. 31 May 2009. Retrieved on 31 May 2009.
- Photographs show 'naked' Czech ex-PM at
Berlusconi's villa. Times Online. 06 July 2009.
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