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Pictures of Mirek Topolánek are once again front-page news in the Czech Republic. Hot on the heels of photos which showed the former prime minister naked in the garden of Silvio Berlusconi's Sardinian villa, the latest series is of a "fortuitous" encounter between Czech politicians — including Civic Democratic Party (ODS) leaders and a Czech social democrat MP — and some of the country's leading businessmen and lobbyists, which occurred in Agentario, Tuscany. The images were supplied to daily Mladá Fronta Dnes by a former intelligence service chief, Karel Randak, who trailed Topolánek 24-hours a day over a period of several weeks. In another Czech daily, Lidové Noviny, political analyst Bohumil Doležal described the affair as "the most significant attempt to undermine government since 1989." For Doležal, who wonders who is hoping to take advantage of the scandal, the publication of the photos is "an organized political crime," which could "destabilize the country ahead of elections" next October.
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