Winning elections by delaying the bad news
The first unverified insider information about a plan by ANO and ČSSD to use the corona crisis to delay this fall's regional and Senate elections came to us in early April. It seemed improbable at the time, because the two ruling parties would have to draw out the state of emergency for half a year. Czechs wouldn't stand for that. A delay now seems more likely, but in a revised form. A jump in covid-19 cases, regardless of whether the numbers were statistically significant, together with an orchestrated public outcry against denying voting rights to those in quarantine could do the trick. Add to that some populist verbiage about how many billions of crowns would be saved by combining this year's elections with next year's, and both ANO and ČSSD could be spared a possible election embarrassment this fall, one that could negatively affect the opinion polls and ultimately the 2021 parliamentary elections. Unlike Don Corleone, Don Babiš insists on delaying any bad news.
Glossary of difficult words
unverified - not having been shown to be true or accurate;insider - a person within a group or organization, esp. someone privy to information unavailable to others;
improbable - not likely to be true or to happen;
orchestrated - planned or coordinated;
outrage - an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock or indignation;
to do the trick - to achieve the desired result;
verbiage - wordiness; long-windedness.