Visiting Prague

Summary: life and political intervention of the most recent president of Cech Republic, Václav Klaus.

Václav Klaus was born in July 19th in the year of 1941, in Vinohrady a district of Prague. He spent his childhood and youth in the neighborhood of Tylovo namesti. Klaus studied in the University of Economics in Prague where he graduated in Economics of Foreign Trade in the years of 1963. He also studied in Italy and U.S. between 1966 and 1969. Klaus completed a PhD in Economics in 1968 while he worked in the Institute of Economics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. During the controversial events of the Prague Spring he had the chance to publish articles on economics in the pro-reform, non-communist magazine called Tvář, meaning The Face. For political reason in 1970 he has to leave the Institute of Economics of the Czech Academy of Sciences coming back only seventeen years later. Therefore he worked for the Czechoslovak State Bank, where he stayed for many years.
In 1989, the year of the Velvet Revolution, he comes into the political life and becomes a member of the Civic Forum. A year later he already was the federal Minister of Finance, a place he held until July 1992; he was also appointed to be Deputy Prime Minister of the Czecho-Slovak Federation. At this time he was made the most powerful Chairman of the Civic Forum until 2002. In 1991 he founded the Civic Democratic Party ODS, this party soon turned into the most economical right-wing of the Forum.
However in 1990 he was selected to Assistant Professor of Economics at Charles University. But would only be in 1995, already as Prime Minister,  that would be given to Klaus, the important position of Professor of Finance at the Prague School of Economics. From the 90’s Klaus published about 20 books about social, political and economics questions.
In the lections of 1992 ODS, his party won and this is how he turned into the Prime Minister of Czech Republic pose that was peaceful achieved due to the division of the Czechoslovakia. Klaus and his party were re-elected in 1996. Nevertheless he resigned after the break-up of the government coalition in November 1997. In 1998 he was made the honorary Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies for a four-year term of office. He made a very controversial speach at this time in one of the most famous hotels in Prague, sorrounded by a big audience composed by many influential figures of Czech Republic.
In 1998 he created a new party with Václav Havel with the mane Freedom Union in Czech Unie svobody US. The elections were won by the Czech Social Democratic Party CSSD. The US refused support to CSSD but Klaus established an opposition agreement with the Milos Zeman tolerating his minority in the government.
In 2002 the ODS run to the elections with Klaus and adverting people to the communist danger but in a TV debate he was defeated by CSSD new leader Vladimír Spidla. who had explicitly refused the opposition agreement, which had become to be perceived as embodiment of stagnation, corruption and attempts to duopolies power despite the constitutional proportional representation. Klaus ended up giving up running to the elections of this year. In 2003 he was elected the President of the Czech Republic with a thin majority, after two failed elections earlier in the month, in the third round of the election. In 2008 he was re-elected and his is the current President of Czech Republic.

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