A breath of fresh air in increasingly xenophobic eastern Europe, after the jump ….
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Although the post is largely ceremonial — subordinate to the prime minister, as in a parliamentary system — with so many recent elections going to right-wingers (and especially in Austria, Poland and Hungary) it felt good to see the recent election of a genuine progressive in eastern Europe. In hopes that she may have future starring roles: it’s worth taking a quick first look at Zuzana Čaputová.
Born in 1973 in Bratislava — then a city in Czechoslovakia, and today the capital city of Slovakia after the country split in two — she grew up in the nearby town of Pezinok (a wine-producing region) near the western border with Austria and graduated from Comenius University law school. She worked in local government in Pezinok (as a deputy to the mayor) and later was a project manager for the Open Society Foundation, dealing with exploited children. Later in her legal career she worked with Greenpeace and started her own law firm.
She became famous due to events in her hometown, where a 1960’s waste dump that took refuse from neighboring countries was built without safeguards:
As the dump started to reach capacity, a wealthy developer with close ties to regional authorities pushed through plans to build another dumping ground. Despite a 2002 ordinance that banned landfills within city limits, plans for the second dumpsite went through without any public input from the surrounding community.
Meanwhile, residents in Pezinok were left to pay the price from the antiquated landfill. Cancer, respiratory diseases, and allergy rates in the area began to soar, with one particular type of leukemia being reported eight times more than the national average.
For Caputova, the waste dump’s toxic legacy cast a deep shadow both at work and at home. The stench from the nearby landfill wafted into her home, where she kept the windows shut to keep her two young daughters safe. Cancer took an unwelcome foothold when both her uncle and a close colleague’s wife received diagnoses in the same week.
It was she who spearheaded the drive to close the landfill: organizing protests, concerts, photographic exhibits and mounting legal challenges both in the EU and Slovakia.
Their first victory (on the issue of standing to challenge the new landfill) was affirmed by the EU Court of Justice, giving the public the right to participate. And finally in 2013, the Supreme Court of Slovakia not only ruled that the new landfill site was illegally granted: it also ordered the closure of the old one.
Small wonder that Zuzana was dubbed “the Erin Brockovich of Slovakia” and she was one of the 2016 recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize— which honors “grassroots environmental heroes for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk”. And in this photo, she appears with several other winners that year, along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and, of course, then House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi.
Zuzana Čaputová — third-from-the-right in this photoShe helped co-found Progressive Slovakia— to be pro-European and foster other progressive ideas — in the year 2017. And while the party has yet to elect its first member of Parliament, it pledged to be four-square against political corruption.
In recent years, Slovakia has (like other countries) been racked with reports of corruption in government. And this issue came-to-a-head following the Feb, 2018 murder of the twenty-seven year-old journalist Ján Kuciak— along with his fiancée Martina Kušnírová — in their home. He had been reporting that businessmen in eastern Slovakia - with links to Calabria's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia - are embezzling EU structural funds with connections to top-level Slovak politicians.
The uproar from this led to the resignation of prime minister Robert Fico and his entire cabinet. And much like the candidates who ran as Democrats last year due to their revulsion with the Administration, these events led Zuzana to declare:
“I suddenly found myself failing to justify why somebody else and not myself should assume responsibility for bringing about change”.
And so she ran for the office of president, winning 41% in the first round of voting, despite a campaign to portray her as an agent of the Hungarian-born …. yeah, you guessed it … George Soros. And then on March 31st, she won the two-candidate runoff election (over European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic, from the ruling conservative party) by a 58% to 42% margin. She thanked voters for electing her in five different languages, then lit a candle at a memorial for Martina Kušnírová and Ján Kuciak.
Immediately after leaving her victory partyGracefully, several heads of state - including those of Austria and Ukraine - congratulated her on social media, with this from the president of Austria:
xMy warmest congratulations to Zuzana #Čaputová, President-elect of #Slovakia, on the impressive success in the presidential election in Austria’s neighbouring country. Wishing her all the best and success for everything that lies ahead. (vdb)
— A. Van der Bellen (@vanderbellen) March 31, 2019While as noted, the post of president is more ceremonial: she has plans to address not only generalized corruption, but also seeking changes to the country’s policing system (to be independent from political influence) and to the judiciary, saying that “justice in Slovakia does not always apply equally to everyone”.
Among her policies: she is pro-EU, pro-NATO and pro action on climate change. Eastern Europe in general (and Slovakia in particular) is socially conservative: yet as a divorced mother of two, she feels compelled to allow adoption by gay couples and would support legalizing same sex marriage.
When she takes office on June 15th, this all could, of course, be a momentary blip … a lightning-flash in the falling rain. But here’s hoping this forty-five year old has a bright future on the Slovakian stage … and why not the world stage, too?
Let’s close with this apropos 1970 instrumental by Steve Winwood and Traffic:
x xYouTube VideoNow, on to Top Comments:
Highlighted by doinaheckuvajob:
In the front-page story about the arrest of Julian Assange— wesmorgan1 has a rejoinder on the arrested man’s motives.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Georgernon about the grilling that JP Morgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon underwent by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) … TulsaGal summed-up the frustration that someone like Dimon causes by sounding reasonable … yet coming unprepared.And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion some time ago:
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