Uncultured Minister Michal Šmarda

Michal Šmarda just made Miloš Zeman's job a lot easier. Instead of lying low and waiting to see if Zeman appoints him to succeed Antonín Staněk as culture minister, Šmarda got on Facebook yesterday and called his coalition partners a bunch of bastards who are only after power. Why he chose to play the role of the uncultured minister is a question that only he and his handlers can answer. It's certainly not behavior becoming a minister, and Zeman can easily invoke this if he decides to deny Šmarda a seat around the cabinet table. Likewise, though, Šmarda has done Zeman a favor if the president decides to go the other way and to make the appointment, as demanded by ČSSD and the Constitution. Šmarda has sufficiently discredited himself that Zeman (and PM Andrej Babiš) can rest assured that this new addition to the cabinet won't be an effective envoy of the "ladder-shakers" of ČSSD who wanted to force ANO into the arms of SPD but have failed so far.