Election Response as an American Student---Brian Bauersfeld

On October 25^th and 26^th, 2013, seven months before the constitutional expiry of the elected parliament’s four-year legislative term, legislative elections were held in the Czech Republic. The government elected in May 2010 led by Prime Minister Petr Nečas was forced to resign on June 17^th, 2013, after a corruption and bribery scandal. As an American student living in Prague, the issue at hand is far less influential on my life, as it would be a Czech student’s life. What has caught my attention is the anti-communist attitude towards the upcoming elections. A Czech artist known for anti-communist-themed work designed a huge statues of a purple hand giving the middle finger that was floating along Prague’s Vltava river on Monday, past the country’s Parliamentary buildings. The creation was placed on a pontoon and set adrift just a few days before the Czech Republic holds a parliamentary election that could put a communist regime in power for the first time in almost twenty five years. The pontoon and statue floated past the Prague Castle, where the nation’s president, Milos Zeman resides. Zeman reportedly supports an initiative from the center-left Social Democratic party to form a minority government that would indirectly put the brazen and increasingly popular Communist party in control. This thought is threatening to an American student in Prague because of past cold war relations between the disbanded communist Soviet Union and the United States. However that being said, it is reassuring to know that anti-communist works such as the middle finger statue exist, and people are willing to voice their opinions.