It was obviously overshot by Spolu marketers, bordering on embarrassing. But it is impossible to stay with this banal statement. The desperate nature of current Czech politics is revealed to us here.
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The problem is that politics is spinning in a spiral of negation. It is not so much about finding positive solutions, but mainly about denigrating the opponent. Before the presidential elections, Andrej Babiš threatened Petr Pavle, making him a candidate for war.
Now the Spolu coalition makes Babiš’ ANO an advocate of Russian interests. The core of most posts by politicians on social media is not their own agenda, but an attack on an opponent who is no longer an opponent, but an enemy, presented as someone who threatens the interests of the country.
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Of course, negative campaigning has always belonged to politics, we can remember, for example, Miloš Zeman’s speech about the scorched earth from the 1990s. But at present we have really moved to the extreme. Political marketers will tell you in private conversations that up to seventy percent of a campaign now simply has to be negative, simply because that’s how it works.
The fundamental motivation for one group of voters is dislike and even hatred for Petar Fial and co., for the other, opposition to Andrej Babiš and Tomio Okamur. Antibabiš, Antifiala – it works.
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There is no point in discussing whose negative campaign is worse, or who started it. The effect, which was well named by President Petr Pavel, is significant when he wrote: “I consider the pre-election statements of Andrej Babiš inciting anti-Ukrainian sentiments to be inappropriate, unfair and dangerous.” But the campaign of his opponents, which makes him and the ANO movement a supporter of Russian interests, is just as unfair and just as dangerous. Neither one nor the other will improve the political culture in our country and will not increase citizens’ trust in politicians.”
Effective in the short term, harmful in the long term
And that’s exactly it. Everyone has been drawn into the spiral of negation, even those from whom we would not expect it. The leaders of the democratic parties have been saying “we are not like them” to populists and extremists for so long that, at least in terms of communication, they have become exactly the same as “them”.
Apparently their reasoning is that what is low is best defeated by lowering ourselves to its level. Which is tempting, and it may be effective in the short term, but it is harmful in the long term.
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Not just because it further destroys the political culture, as the president says. But mainly because by reducing politics to scaring the enemy, the space for real politics, i.e. for solving the country’s problems and finding an answer to the question of how to move the country forward, is narrowing.
When we focus only on negativity, there is no opportunity, time or energy left for positivity. And if we do not see the opponent as an opponent, but as a mortal enemy, then it is not surprising that eventually the possibility of agreeing across politics on anything that exceeds one electoral term, as we are now witnessing in the disagreement on pension reform, to put it mildly, disappears.
It goes without saying that under the conditions of the current polarization of society, a negative campaign cannot be avoided. But actively spinning a spiral of negation? Those who see further and are not only interested in grabbing power, could and should forgive themselves for that.
The author is a commentator for Hospodářské noviny
