Bátora definitively leaves Czech EdMin, resigns as chair of Akce D.O.S.T.

Ladislav Bátora is resigning both as an adviser to the Czech Education Minister and as the leader of the ultra-conservative Akce D.O.S.T. organization. The reason for his resignation is said to be that both Czech Education Minister Josef Dobeš (VV – Public Affairs) and Bátora’s own closest co-workers have objected to Bátora’s recent criticisms of various cabinet members. Under pressure from the media, Bátora had previously resigned his post as deputy to the head of the Czech Education Minister’s cabinet in October.

“I will resign as chair of Akce D.O.S.T. on Thursday at noon. The members of our movement will probably be surprised,” Bátora said. He added that his recent statements about Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (both with TOP 09) had “really greatly spoiled everything” for him, even among his own rank and file.

Bátora also said he was resigning his position as an adviser to Dobeš. “I have a one-tenth time position at the ministry. It is logical, as you certainly understand, for me to resign from that as well. It will just be yet another chapter,” he said.

Bátora’s recent remarks about the Czech Finance Minister were as follows: “We are living in an era that is not of our choosing, and our country is being run by inhuman creatures like Miroslav Kalousek, who were selected for us by others.” He also called Kalousek a “wretched piece of trash” and even issued the following warning: “He owes me a very, really quite enormous debt and payback time is coming.”

Bátora also did not spare the chair of TOP 09, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. “I expected him to be horrible and the minister did not disappoint… The truth is, however, that he surprised me rather nicely recently when he said in Právo that he would entrust me with the pencil warehouse. I wouldn’t trust him even with that – a bull is dangerous from the front, a horse is dangerous from the back, and His Royal Illustriousness is a very rare combination of both,” Bátora said.

When Bátora was a bureaucrat at the Czech Education Ministry he could not afford to make such aggressive attacks. Under pressure from public opinion, Czech Education Minister Dobeš subdued him after each harsh statement. Thanks to reporting by news server Romea.cz and other media, the public was able to learn everything it needed to know about Bátora: He ran as a candidate for the anti-Roma, extremist, racist National Party (Národní strana – NS); he met with fascists, hardcore anti-Semites and neo-Nazis at lectures of the extremist Patriotic Front (Vlastenecká fronta), where he gave lectures himself; and he edited a reader of anti-Semitic texts in which he praised “The Adulteration of the Slavs” (Zkáza Slovanů), an early 20th-century anti-Semitic tract by Rudolf Vrba.