Public Affairs party comes under scrutiny for pre-election street patrols
The surprise political hit of the Czech general election campaign so far, the Public Affairs party, has come under the spotlight for another reason than its high poll ratings. Media attention has focussed on the party’s newly launched street patrols and its populist stance on law and order.
That message that it is ridding Czech politics of its dinosaur parties is one that Věci Veřejné or the Public Affairs party has successfully sold so far in the campaign for elections to the lower house of parliament.
The party looks certain to get into parliament and its leader Radek John was picked in one poll as the country’s most popular politician.
The existence of such patrols has not been lost on the leader of the recently banned far-right Workers Party, Tomáš Vandas. He has declared that he sees no reason why it should not resurrect its provocative militia-style patrols of Czech towns.
And some of the public comments of Public Affairs’ leadership have also been seized on. In one blog, party deputy leader and head of the party election list in the Plzeň region, Jaroslav Škárka, accuses Roma of seeking asylum in Canada while claiming benefits in the Czech Republic.
Miroslav Mareš is an expert on extremism at Brno’s Masaryk University. He says that while the Public Affairs party does not have the historical trappings of the Workers’ Party, it is seeking to draw on some of the same prejudices and fears.
“I think it is a new kind of party and a new kind of modern populism. It does not have the historical connection to some past models of totalitarianism or of Fascism as was the case of the Workers’ Party which was banned in February. However I think that Věci Veřejné is a modernist populist protest party which uses the xenophobic prejudices of the Czech population and partially it also uses the fear of crime. And I think that it is an important topic for the election campaign ― this kind of vigilantism.”
The party’s election platform includes the rejection of positive discrimination, forced removal of those with chronic rent arrears or regarded as social misfits, increased police patrols in problem areas and a crack down on abuse of social payments and employment of foreigners.
“We sent onto the streets social intervention patrols. They are not security patrols that replace the police. These are volunteers who are there to advise citizens who currently have problems, who are for example homeless, and give advice to those who have dropped out of society how to get back in.”
Mr. John says the patrols are needed because many ordinary Czechs are often afraid to take their problems to the proper authorities. How long they will continue depends on the volunteers themselves.
