Speech of the Prime Minister of the CR, Mirek Topolánek in the Senate at the Conference "Direct Presidential Election?" held on 26th September 2007.

Good afternoon once more, dear Chairman of the Senate, dear colleagues, dear guests, friends. The last speaker has one indisputable disadvantage; it is that most things concerning the main subject matter has already been said; and he has one indisputable advantage – possibility to comment and summarize the discussion and to use the favourable position of the last speaker to good account. I would like to assure you that I will not commit such silliness.

I am of the opinion that the issue of direct presidential election has two aspects. One of them is constitutional one or institutional one, if you like; the other one is political one. I will try myself to stick to the first one, in spite of the fact that I can be accused of political usefulness owing to my position, no matter if I will pronounce for or against it. And the fact that the main candidate of my party is a favourite of the elections will hardly help me.

There is not the same opinion on the election of the head of the state in my party. And it is necessary to admit that this issue has been posed by various parties because of pure opportunism. Anyway, I do not find correct if the change of the way of head of state voting begins to be debated only in time when the election period of the existing president is drawing near to its end, and when his/her successor is being chosen.

In spite of this fact, I thank very much for starting this discussion and for the invitation to the Senate. As to me, I am a staunch advocate of neither variant. It get me, as a conservative, to the idea not to change existing status quo as there are no weighty reasons for that. I think that there are no weighty reasons for the change and I will try to prove it.

First of all, I regard as important to say that there no direct relation exists between the way of president election, his/her power and the quality of democracy in a country.

There exist presidential systems with direct president election and strong power of the head of the state, as it is in case of the United States or in Russia. President in France has weak power resulted from the constitution, but his/her position is traditionally strong according to customary law. Different situation is in Austria, where head of the state is elected by citizens, the constitution affords him great competences, but the president is weak.

In Slovakia the president is elected directly, but his/her competences are not very great. In our country, from the Masaryk´s times, is usual that the president has a great respect. As to his/her competences, the president cannot influence the politics, but on the other hand he/she has kind of royal privileges – for example unrestricted right to grant pardon.

There is no existing relation between the way of election, constitutional competences and factual position of the head of the state. The crucial matter is tradition and the customary law. This is the issue I want to pay attention to.

Our immovable tradition are indirect presidential elections. What are experiences of its using? First of all, it is necessary to say that in eighty years – forty years of which were democratic – the election of Václav Klaus was the first real election. Up to then, elections were either demonstrative or it even was not possible to choose among more candidates.

Definitely, I regard as an advantage the fact that our presidential elections are not accompanied by political campaign, which divides citizens and which brings one more political combat in our society. We could see it in case of Poland, where the presidential elections followed the parliamentary ones. If somebody says that our way of election of the head of the state is not dignified, he/she should consider impacts of direct election.

I am of the opinion that indirect election is more logically suitable for the parliamentary system. If the president has no possibility to influence actual politics, it is rather useless for his/her mandate to be derived from the will of citizens. He/she has no own political programme. He/she plays a role of constitutional safeguard and national keystone; he/she is rather an advocate of values like continuity, tradition, security; similarly as the British queen – and she is not elected by citizens either.

If some reservations occur regarding the constitutional position of a president, they often concern his/her powers. Somebody regards them as weak, while others regard them as too strong. It is an interesting fact that some people promote greater competences, and the other would like to cut them. This fact also shows that there is no great demand for the change of the presidential election; a problem is what the concrete persons expect, what are his/her objectives.

An example of such ambitions are sporadic complaints that only directly elected head of the state could call the political scene in order, to stop so called politicking. It is rather danger political illusion, and it is unfortunately very common among people. The principle of democracy is based on delegation of power, on clearly defined responsibility and sharing powers. An idea of a super-corrector of all political mistakes is completely false. And it is also completely anti-democratic. The party-based system is nothing else than a mirror of our society, a reflection of its different opinions, priorities and interests.

As far as the president position in the constitutional system is concerned, I regard it as optimal, in fact, despite of all the criticism. It has always been shown that our election system did not enable to constitute homogenous and strong cabinets and that the president with his/her not very strong competences could play an effective role of stabilizer of our political scene. I am not going to name anybody, but the head of the state has always succeeded in warding crises.

To summarize it, I must say that the indirect presidential elections are not less dignified, less logical, less functional, less democratic, and constructive than direct elections. I do not have, unlike number of my colleagues, strong opinion on that issue. But if something is operating well, and if it is not clear that it would be operate better, then – why to change it?

Therefore, I am for the indirect election of the head of the state. It is a traditional matter. It does not bring any great problems. And last but not least, I do not think that there was a principal reason mentioned during the debate why to change the constitution just because the presidential elections.

I apologize for my rather tiresome and ambiguous speech, but importance of the issue was such high that even I myself was affected. In the conclusion, I will try to ease my speech by a quotation of Oscar Wild, who reflected very frequently used term "the people" in the discussion: "Democracy means simply bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people". Repeat these words at home before sleeping.

Thank you for your attention.