Jan Kohout: former Communist, seasoned UN/EU diplomat, political tyro, and 'chief candidate' to become Prime Minister

Ambassador to the European Union and Social Democratic party member Jan Kohout is the odds-on favourite to become the next Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Mr Kohout is an experienced diplomat, but an untested politician: he has never been elected to public office or held a position of leadership within the Social Democratic party itself. Brian Kenety takes a look at the career of the man who might be set to take over the reins of government.

Jan Kohout, photo: CTK

"Mr President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen: Let me start with saying how pleased I am to see a representative of my own country presiding over this session of the UN General Assembly. It is the first time the Czech Republic has the honour to chair the Supreme Body of the United Nations..."

Jan Kohout, aged 44, has a distinguished record of public service in the diplomatic core. What you've just heard is an excerpt from Mr Kohout's speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2002, when he was the Czech Republic's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Mr Kohout spent a decade of his career focusing on the United Nations, serving as deputy head of the Czech permanent mission to the UN from 1995 to 2000. He returned to Prague in 2001 and held various high-level positions at the Czech foreign ministry related to European affairs, and played a major role in the Czech Republic's negotiations to join the European Union, in May of last year.

I asked Karel Bartak, the long-time Brussels correspondent for the Czech news agency (CTK) to shed some light on Mr Kohout's leadership style.

Jan Kohout and Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, photo: CTK

"He's been around since Pavel Telicka left the position of the Ambassador to the EU and became Commissioner; that means since the first of May last year, not a very long time, but Mr Kohout was around for many years before because he was a member of the negotiating team [for EU accession]. He was quite different from Telicka; I think he was a much more, let's say, 'low key' ambassador -- not so outspoken. But at the same time he's somebody who has a very reflective attitude, thinking of all different aspects and shades of problems -- not someone who would take decisions fast, I would say."

Jan Kohout was one of three Czech members to the European Convention, and so one of a hundred odd bureaucrats to have a hand in the crafting of the controversial European Constitution - the draft treaty meant to govern relations between the now 25 EU member states.

The current Prime Minister, Stanislav Gross, his government on the verge of collapse and pressured into resigning over his murky family finances, has said he would only step down to make way for a "very pro-European" government in a one-time deal under which no party leaders among the new-old coalition government would have key post.

A prime task of the next government, if it comes into being, will be to push through ratification of the European Constitution. Brussels correspondent Karel Bartek says that Jan Kohout is well suited to the task:

President Vaclav Klaus, photo: CTK

"He was a member of the Convention and one of the more active members; actually, he replaced former minister Jan Kavan in the Convention... I think from this point of view, he's the best-placed person, if you want to lead a campaign about the Constitution, there is nobody but him and the other two Czech members of the former Convention who have a profound knowledge of the text, because they were drafting it for more than 16 months."

If named Prime Minister, Jan Kohout will have a formidable opponent in achieving this goal: the famously eurosceptic Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, who is pushing for a nationwide referendum.

He will also no doubt be asked to answer questions about his membership in the Czechoslovak Communist party (KSC) from 1986 to 1989 (he also studied at the Moscow-based State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). Jan Kohout has said that he joined the party at the time of "perestroika"--when the party seemed open to reform, and change from within--but given the inter-coalition outcry over the fact that Stanislav Gross only survived a recent no-confidence thanks to the abstention of Communists, Mr Kohout may be in for a rough time of it.