Pirates in the 'hard opposition'

MP Jakub Michálek of the Pirates insisted yesterday that his party will be the "hard opposition," now that PM Petr Fiala has taken steps to remove Pirates Chair Ivan Bartoš as development ministry. Michálek showed signs of this toughness at a press conference yesterday by saying the Pirates had probably bitten off more than they could chew by taking on the building-permit system, given that some construction officials with political cover have had rackets going there and that ODS's Zdeněk Zajíček from the ICT Union was also against them. Michálek had made similar tough comments about STAN and the Dosimeter case, and before that was the tough stance the Pirates took regarding OKD. In neither of these previous cases can the Pirates point to any concrete result of their grandstanding. The building-permit system, which now goes to ODS, gives them perhaps their final chance to prove that they are serious about opposing the "godfathers" that they blame for many of the country's problems.