Sobotka and Fico

"What's the difference between ODS and ČSSD?" went a joke after Petr Nečas's ODS-led government imploded in mid-2013. "Pessimists say one year, and optimists two." In reality, Bohuslav Sobotka resigned as ČSSD chairman in June 2017, and his party imploded in the parliamentary elections four months later, yet it still managed to reenter the next government without him. "What's the difference between ČSSD and Smer?" could go a joke now. "Two years." Everything is more brutal in Slovakia, and Smer and its chairman, Robert Fico, appear to be on their way out of the government entirely. Election winner Igor Matovič told Právo that, "Smer created a system that turned over the top places in the police and courts to the mafia." This also pretty well describes ČSSD a.s. under Sobotka, Milan Chovanec and lawyer Radek Pokorný. The main difference between Sobotka and Fico, curiously, is that Sobotka's team had the "liberal democratic" media on its side, and Fico did not.