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DE RUEHPG #0427/01 1151046
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 251046Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY PRAGUE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7253
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
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RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRAGUE 000427 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EZ PGOV PINR PREL
SUBJECT:  MARTIN BURSIK, MEAN GREEN CHAMELEON, POSSIBLE 
KINGMAKER 
 
REF: A. PRAGUE 284 
     ¶B. 05 PRAGUE 1694 
 
 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. It looks increasingly likely that the 
Czech Green Party will cross the 5% threshold in the June 2-3 
parliamentary elections, and have a say in the formation of 
the next coalition government. Martin Bursik, who became 
Chairman of the party six months ago, and who is given credit 
for the party,s recent rise in popularity, has been a member 
of several political parties throughout his career, and is 
likely to compromise on many issues that are fundamental to 
party activists at the grass roots level.  But Bursik is 
unlikely to cut deals with politicians he has wrangled with 
in the past, particularly some within the current 
front-runner, the Civic Democrats (ODS). END SUMMARY 
 
¶2. (U) The most frequent criticism leveled against Bursik is 
that he has too often changed his political stripes. Before 
November 1989, Bursik was an activist with the Movement for 
Civic Freedom (Hnuti za obcanskou svobodu).   After the 
political changes in November 1989, he helped found Civic 
Forum.  In 1990, he went to the US to work as a legislative 
intern for several months in the office of Congressmen Jim 
McDermott (D-WA), as part of a USAID program. Bursik 
continues to call Congressman McDermott a friend and hosted 
the Congressman during his visit to Prague. After Bursik 
returned to then-Czechoslovakia, he was elected to the Prague 
City Council as a member of the Free Democrats, one of the 
parties that emerged after the breakup of Civic Forum.  He 
was the Deputy Chair of the party from 1993-1995, but quit in 
April 1996, staying on the city council as an unaffiliated 
independent.  In February of 1998, he was made Minister of 
the Environment under the Tosovsky caretaker government, a 
post he held for roughly six months. After the end of the 
caretaker government, he ran for Mayor of Prague on the 
Freedom Union ticket, losing out to the ODS candidate.  In 
February 1999, Bursik was again elected to the Prague City 
Council, this time as a Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL.)  He 
made something of a name for himself as a corruption fighter, 
but left that party in 2003, complaining of a lack of space 
to implement environmental initiatives. He joined the Greens 
in June of 2004, and joined the party leadership four months 
later. He became party chair in September 2005.  Many critics 
say that Bursik has simply rebranded himself again, that he 
is nothing more than a new face for old political forces 
associated with Civic Forum and former President Havel. 
 
¶3. (U) Bursik won the Chairmanship of the Greens last fall 
after a series of fairly acrimonious and personal duels with 
his predecessors, Jakub Patocka and Jan Beranek.  Patocka now 
says Bursik is a careerist who will compromise on any issue 
in order to gain a share of power.  Patocka feels that Bursik 
has betrayed the values that motivated the party for its 
first fifteen years. Patocka calls Bursik, "an ambitious 
political manipulator." Beranek went on to work as a regional 
coordinator for Greenpeace.  Bursik says that Patocka is 
nave and would have negotiated with the Communists.  Bursik 
complained that his predecessors managed the Greens like a 
small NGO rather than a serious political party. Many 
observers doubt whether the recent surge in opinion polls 
could have been possible under Bursik's predecessors. 
 
¶4. (U) Many point to the past tensions between Civic Forum, 
and the Civic Democrats, then led by current President, and 
ODS Honorary Chairman, Vaclav Klaus, as one of the reasons 
ODS has trouble deciding what to do with the Greens now. 
Bursik and Klaus did not like each other in the 90,s and 
those tensions continue to this day.  A year ago, after 
President Klaus chose not to support a bill that would have 
promoted the use of renewable sources of energy, Bursik 
called a press conference to list what he referred to as "The 
Ten Mistakes of President Klaus."  More recently, Bursik 
criticized Klaus for his opposition to a bill to permit 
registered partnership for homosexuals. Local political 
analysts are unanimous in their belief that Bursik would not 
support Klaus,s re-election as president in 2008. While 
Bursik has shown flexibility on many issues, his animosity 
towards Klaus and the Klaus supporters inside ODS is probably 
unshakable. 
 
¶5. (U) It is believed that many within ODS now favor a grand 
coalition with CSSD, over other post-election outcomes, 
including a coalition with the Greens. In the event of a 
grand coalition, Klaus would have a reasonable chance of 
being reelected, and Klaus support, Prague Mayor Pavel Bem 
(ODS), though not on the ballot, could be asked to take over 
leadership of the party, since he has experience working with 
Prime Minister Paroubek within the Prague city government, 
and since current ODS chair Miroslav Topolanek is opposed to 
 
PRAGUE 00000427  002 OF 002 
 
 
a coalition with Paroubek. In April, 2006, Bem launched an 
attack against Bursik, claiming he had violated conflict of 
interest standards by receiving city funds to renovate 
personal property while a member of the city council.  The 
attack was later taken up by Bem's assistant, Deputy Mayor, 
Jan Burgermeister. 
 
¶6. (U) Bursik is on the advisory board of Green Budget 
Germany (GBG), a German NGO that lobbies both within Germany 
and internationally, for ecologically-based tax reform.  In 
December 2005, in Berlin, Bursik presented his plan to 
introduce such a tax in the Czech Republic. He also repeated 
his desire for such a tax during a March, 2006 lunch with 
Ambassador Cabaniss.  Meanwhile, also in March, Vladmir 
Zelezny, controversial former Senator, current MEP, and 
independent candidate in the upcoming elections, let it be 
known that he had heard from EU Green members in Brussels 
that the German Greens had given Bursik,s party 1.5 million 
Euro to help them with their campaign. Unlike the current 
Minister of the Environment, Libor Ambrozek, Bursik has been 
quiet on the controversial subject of German waste illegally 
shipped into the Czech Republic. 
 
¶7. (U) In March 2006, the Czech Daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes, ran 
a story about the personal wealth of the leaders of the five 
main political parties.  Bursik is the richest of them all. 
He has income from four properties he owns, including the 
renovated house next to parliament in Prague.  He 
acknowledged having the equivalent of US$15,000 in his bank 
account. 
 
¶8. (U) Bursik went through a well-publicized divorce in the 
late 90,s after openly dating Jitka Obzinova, a former 
reporter for Czechoslovak TV and later moderator of a debate 
program on TV Nova. Bursik,s former wife, Ivana Bursikova, 
is still active in public life, running the NGO she started 
many years ago, AGORA. 
 
¶9. (U) Bursik is an avid climber and has climbed in Nepal, 
Tibet, the Caucuses and several countries in South America. 
 
¶10. (SBU) COMMENT.  Bursik has changed his political 
affiliation many times, though his interest in environmental 
issues is long-standing. He knows a great deal about energy 
and environmental science and will want to pursue principled 
policies, where possible. But his position on many specific 
issues, such as nuclear power or foreign deployments, usually 
considered non-negotiable among traditional Green Party 
members, could be surprisingly flexible. Bursik is a veteran 
politician, a profession that demands compromise and in this 
respect he differs from the activists who used to steer the 
party. When Bursik was Environmental Minister, in 1998, he 
approved operations at the Temelin Nuclear Power Plant, 
earning him a prize as the "Environmental Enemy of the Year." 
 And when Bursik took over the reins of the party last year, 
he was asked whether he was bothered by the fact that the 
Greens, only representative, Senator Jaromir Stetina, had 
supported the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in defiance of the 
party,s platform, Bursik said "no." (On the Greens election 
platform, foreign affairs is the seventh of seven issues. 
One line on terrorism reads, "This is an issue that touches 
us all. Security can not be compartmentalized, as the attacks 
in New York, Madrid, Istanbul, London and elsewhere have 
shown. But using pre-emptive war, or cultural confrontation 
to deal with these threats is something the Greens consider 
bad, foolish, and counterproductive.") 
 
¶11. (SBU) COMMENT CONTINUED: Not long ago the Greens were a 
rag-tag bunch of activists at the grass roots level.  Bursik, 
45, might succeed in making the party into a lasting and 
influential force in Czech politics. The opportunity is 
there.  Many Czechs are weary of the current political 
parties and long for something new.  In addition, the 
emergence of the Greens comes at a time of rising standards 
of living and increased attention to quality of life issues. 
But the leap from untarnished political movement to 
successful coalition partner is one that will involve much 
give and take.  Bursik has so far done a good job of selling 
the party to the public. If he succeeds in the election, he 
will have to sell political realities to the party. 
CABANISS