President awards honorary plaque to leading economist

Czech President Václav Klaus awarded the left-leaning economist Valtr Komárek with the president’s golden plaque at Prague Castle on Wednesday. Mr Komárek’s, who is considered the country’s doyen of social democracy, received the honor on his 80th birthday. Both Mr Klaus and Mr Komárek were members of the first government after the fall of communism in 1989. Their views on how to transform the country’s economy, however, differed vastly. While Mr Klaus advocated a free market economy, Mr Komárek pleaded for a more leftist approach. Mr Komárek was a member of the Communist Party until 1990 and worked as an adviser to Che Guevara, who at the time was Cuba’s minister of industry, in the 1960s.