Social Democrats elect Valtr Komárek honorary chairman

At the party congress, Social Democrat delegates elected former post-1989 Czechoslovak deputy prime minister Valtr Komárek as their honorary chairman, succeeding the late Slavomír Klaban in the post. In his speech ahead of the vote Mr Komárek, an economist and the sole candidate for the honorary position, said that the Social Democrats needed to try and change the political direction of the country, focussing on the development of the nation, increasing levels of education and improving the economy. Mr Komarek was an advisor to the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara in the 1960s and is the former head of the prognostics institute where, under communism, he worked with other notable figures such as Miloš Zeman (later prime minister) and economist Václav Klaus, who is the Czech head-of-state.