Communists say sorry for scraps of power

On its front page, Hospodářské Noviny leads with "Communists want a role in government in exchange for an apology." Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Czech communists are planning to apologize for crimes committed during 40 years of totalitarian rule. However, Vojtěch Filip, leader of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, makes no secret of the fact that in presenting an apology, he is hoping to boost his party's political influence in the event of a Social Democratic Party win in elections slated for next October: "Our interest is best served by more cooperation on the left, and we should be able to make a gesture to make that possible."

According to Hospodářské Noviny, Filip simply wants to reiterate regrets expressed by the Czechoslovakian Communist Party in 1989, and the business daily warns that "communists still believe that the oppression exercised by the totalitarian regime was necessary at the time." It concludes that the initiative will not be a real apology, but an "empty political gesture that aims to obtain a scrap of power," which may nonetheless prove to be successful.