New party: Now or never

"If not ODS, then who?" ask many frustrated center-right voters faced with the quandary of whom to support in the next elections. As one of our readers put it, "Should we vote for the Bolsheviks who are disguised as the Communists; the Communists who are disguised as the Social Democrats; the Social Democrats who are disguised as ODS; the hopeless Christian Democrats; or perhaps the amateurish Greens?" Others say that if the fall elections bring the kind of ODS disaster that some people are beginning to suspect, the time might be right for a new center-right party. But it would have to be stocked with fresh faces who aren't tainted by politics or privatization scandals. It might be an opportunity for newly retired small and midsize businessmen who don't know what to do with all their millions. But if they don't hurry, there might not be anything left of the country for them to save.