PRAGUE: Rebellion by Czech TV journalists against a new director of the publicly-owned Czech TV marks the climax of a ten year battle between two concepts of democracy. The first concept is represented by former prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, the second by President Vaclav Havel.

Klaus sees political parties as the backbone of any democratic system and sees little place for civil society in politics. He deems the proponents of civil society “elitists” who refuse to be tested at the ballot box and who try to influence politics through informal mechanisms.

President Havel argues that a democracy based only on political parties and basic democratic mechanisms is deformed. In his view, political parties, although necessary, must be checked by a robust civil society. If civil society is too weak, parties will seek to dominate institutions that should remain independent. Over the past ten years President Havel has repeatedly asked the Czechs to be more active and to not let politicians control their lives.

Klaus’s vision of democracy had the upper hand for most of the past decade. Easily understood, it conformed to patterns of behavior most Czechs acquired during the communist era, when public and private spheres of life were rigidly separated. True, communism’s fall was brought about by a strong civic movement called “Civic Forum”, but that movement disintegrated once it achieved its goal. With its passing, people became passive once more.

Klaus and his followers spearheaded the creation of well-functioning, standard political parties. But in the absence of a strong civil society, those parties monopolized public space, pushing civic activists to the sidelines. Havel was the first important Czech politician to criticize this trend, warning against excessive partisanship and arguing that political parties would become internally weak but outwardly authoritarian if they did not draw inspiration from a vibrant civil society.

Unfortunately, Havel’s vision of democracy appears complicated when compared to that of Klaus. In the past, calls for active civic engagement and Havel’s moralistic views left average Czechs cold and alienated political opponents, who accused him of promoting a nonpolitical form of politics. Prompted by civic passivity, political parties not only came to dominate every aspect of Czech life but engaged in dubious practices that increased cynicism and public passivity.

At the end of 1997, the second Klaus government collapsed under the weight of financial scandals. Rather than learn from this fiasco, Klaus went on the offensive, claiming that he was a victim of a conspiracy hatched by Havel. But his party, the Civic Democrats (ODS), lost the June 1998 elections to the Social Democrats (CSSD), whom Klaus vilified before the elections as a threat to democracy.

Soon afterwards, however, the Civic Democrats and the Social Democrats signed the so-called “opposition agreement”, under which Klaus’s party gained important posts and other advantages in exchange for allowing the Social Democrats of Prime Minister Zeman to form a minority government. Klaus, Zeman and their parties also agreed to work together to limit presidential power and the independence of the Central Bank by changing the Constitution, as well as to change the electoral law in their favor.

Four smaller parties, who allied themselves in a four-party coalition called “4K” objected. Protests against these political arrangements were criticized by the ODS and CSSD as attempts to undermine their efforts to ensure political stability. Despite the fact that the opposition agreement boosted the popularity of the unreformed Czech Communists, the determination of the Civic Democrats and Social Democrats to continue dividing the spoils of power remained undiminished.

In the fall of 2000, Czech voters rebuked both parties during regional and Senate elections, with the Social Democrats losing their joint majority in the Senate. Because the Czech Parliament’s upper house has an absolute veto over constitutional amendments, the opportunity to amend the Constitution was lost. Loss of control of the Senate also meant that Klaus’s hope to replace Havel as president diminished.

Defeat prompted Klaus and Zeman to try to and gain control over Czech TV by packing its council of overseers with their sympathizers. Shortly before Christmas, Czech TV’s director, who was resisting political pressure, was replaced by Jiri Hodac, a man with close ties to ODS. TV journalists rebelled, occupying the station's newsroom. The protests by artists, intellectuals and opposition politicians that followed were the biggest political upheavals since 1989.

Realizing that the game was lost, the Social Democrats joined with Klaus’s opponents in parliament on January 5th to demand Hodac’s resignation. Parliament is also working on a new TV law to prevent political parties from politicizing the TV Council.

But political realignment is not the most important news arising from this turmoil. Of far greater importance is the reawakening of civil society which has, for the first time since 1989, stood up to the political parties to reclaim the public space it relinquished ten years ago. Equally important is the fact that for the first time since 1989, civil society has found a voice independent of President Havel.

Unrecognized by almost everyone, Czech society has moved beyond Havel and Klaus. It rejects Klaus’s truncated democracy, and, although it supports (to some extent) Havel’s vision, Havel himself is no longer the motor of civil society in action.