The covid-19 pandemic has prompted the creation of a new party in the Czech Republic, “We Open the Czech Republic”, which, founded by restaurant owners as a legal ruse to prevent the closure imposed by the authorities, has decided to challenge the government of populist Andrej Babis also at the ballot box.
The movement, which is explicitly not a coronavirus denier, has formed around businessman Jakub Olbert, owner of the well-known Praguense restaurant “Seberak”, next to a lake south of the capital, which has been struggling for weeks to keep its premises open.
If your immediate task has been to create restriction-free redoubts to boost gastronomy, the priority of the party’s program will be to “better establish the law of crisis: under what conditions we may lose constitutional rights and freedoms,” he explains to Efe Olbert in his restaurant.
At the time of the interview, the place was full of diners.
Irresponsible and disloyal to his critics, this rebellious businessman has managed to bring together hundreds of colleagues who do not understand the need to keep their businesses closed and disburse figures in their favour that reflect the blow of restrictions.
Last month was the worst January since 1993 in terms of the number of missing companies: 1,336, 5% more than a year ago, while 2,413 new ones emerged, 11% less than in January 2020, according to the CRIF rating agency.
Gap for gastronomy
Olbert’s stated attempt is to open a gap to protect the hospitality and catering sector, which, according to the Statistical Office, employs 6.5% of the country’s population.
Each month of confinement is a total revenue drop of EUR 673 million for the sector.
The party today brings together 1,200 entrepreneurs opposed to the closure decreed after Christmas. Of these, some 400, believing they have the law on their side, have left their premises open in compliance with current hygiene standards: limiting the ability of customers to ensure physical distance, and use disinfectant and masks.
In the last two months “we have not recorded any covid case,” Olbert defends himself.
Restaurants, political cells
Initially, “Open Czech Republic” was designed as a “kafkiana” ploy to protect against sanctions with a kind of legal rift, admits the initiative’s spokesman, David Biksadsk,
The idea was to register these premises as centers or cells of political activity, turning them into subsidiaries of the new party, which the government cannot dissolve or ban.
However, they have begun to receive fines, although the spokesman noted that they will “challenge them all”, convinced that the State will also have to compensate employers for the financial consequences of closure.
The group has decided to go to the October legislation with a call to return the country to economic and social “normality”.
The ghost of totalitarianism?
The state of emergency, in force since 5 October, has resulted in large economic losses for entrepreneurs. Many also complain about the limitations of the fundamental freedoms that came to the country with democracy, after decades of communism.
Also for Olbert, the current situation awakens the ghost of what happened during this totalitarian regime which between 1948-1989 imposed capricious and overwhelming state regulation, although the measures today have no ideological reasons, but public health reasons.
However, the coalition executive led by millionaire businessman Babis has not been able to explain the logic of his state-of-emergency decisions.
Unlike the spring of 2020, when the Czechs were exemplary in the fight against the pandemic, it is now more and more people who skip the measures, which explains the high rate of contagion: the country registers, with 914 per 100,000 inhabitants in fourteen days, the second highest incidence of contagions in Europe, after Portugal.
The pulse with the police
For the Czech Government, the restaurants that support Olbert’s initiative are insolidary places that violate the rules of competition, also putting the health of citizens at stake.
The idea of creating political turmoil cells to dodge restrictions was from the outset considered “nonsense” by Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, who has announced a register of offenders and threatens to ban them from activity for a year.
Something that does not seem to take away the dream of Olbert, who, in his inconveniences with the police, it stands out to have gone through two phases.
“A first, characterized by the disrecognise of the right, where we let ourselves be closed and taken out by force,” he explains.
And a second, “when we gained information and knew what everyone can do: a correct phase where, every time they come, we negotiate with them. In the end, (the cops) are just people, and they don’t want to put anyone in jail for opening a tavern,” Olbert apostille.
