(Interview for Parlamentní listy 1.11.2025)
"People would like change, but they are actually afraid of it, so they keep voting for the same crooks over and over again, but they expect a different result - unfortunately, this is exactly the definition of stupidity, even according to Einstein," says writer, director and artist Jan Tománek in an interview with ParlamentníListy.cz, expressing his deep disappointment over the results of the parliamentary elections. In the interview, he also touches on the influence of the media and young politicians, whose media presence he considers superficial rather than truly valuable for legislative work.
Mr. Tománek, in recent weeks you have expressed considerable disappointment with the results of the parliamentary elections on your blog. How exactly do you assess the current political situation in the Czech Republic? What bothers you most about the results and why do you feel that this is a step backwards?
I think these elections were literally a surprise to everyone I spoke to. Personally, I expected SPOLU to be artificially heavily overrated in the media, and parties like SPD and Stačilo! to be deliberately underestimated...
After Covid, the whole society cursed Babiše, people knew what he was doing with laws, freedom and vaccinations, and you see, four years of Petr Fiala's government were enough for people to forget everything and in their naivety actually did the same thing as years ago when they didn't want Babiše - only the opposite. "The main thing is that Fiala isn't there - then we'll vote for Babiše..."
To me, this is a completely crazy picture of this society, because as a result, the TOGETHER + YES parties have 4% more votes than in the 2021 elections – the votes just spilled over. However, both of these variants (TOGETHER and YES) are just different sides of the same fake coin.
The same Pirates and STAN – also together 4% more than in 2021 – after all the Dosimeters, digitalization, Bitcoins, Covid…
People would like change, but they are actually afraid of it, so they keep electing the same crooks over and over again, but they expect a different result - unfortunately, this is exactly the definition of stupidity, according to Einstein.
The Stačilo! movement, which had believed in exceeding the five percent threshold for entering the Chamber of Deputies, suffered a significant electoral disappointment. The SPD also fell short of expectations. In your opinion, was their election result influenced by an intensive smear campaign, also with the help of the media, or did they simply do something wrong that discouraged voters?
Of course, there are calls for fraud, but several people have independently written to me that they were on election commissions and their district results actually exactly replicate the overall results. Moreover, if there was fraud, it would probably be from the SPOLU or STAN parties, but they did not win...
The merger of the parties with the SPD must have angered the voters of the individual parties, and then I think there was a huge outflow of the SPD voter base for other reasons – some went to Stačilo! (and those votes were lost), others to Motoristů, and the rest preferred to run to ANO, as a bad but "better" certainty.
I am also afraid that the government's lying campaign of fear of war, withdrawal from NATO, the Russian note and all sorts of intimidation, ostracization and labeling of any SPD and Stačilo voter really worked! On the contrary, the media and SPOLU (surprisingly) took the Motorists at their mercy. But as it turns out, they left the fight against the Motorists until after the elections - it is actually a perfectly crafted strategy, which is certainly not accidental...
The elections brought young and relatively unknown faces to the parliament. Young politicians who are now entering parliament often benefit from their media profiles and popularity on social networks. What is your opinion on this new generation of politicians? Can their media presence be an asset to legislative work, or does it carry the risk of being more influenced by populism than by real politics?
It's a literally crazy picture - I saw those few young Pirate or STAN girls who got into the Chamber of Deputies - it's a crazy picture of immaturity, naivety and stupidity. Unfortunately, it's a picture of this society - actually exactly the superficiality that came to us from America. They say that for them the surface is the essence and here it is perfectly visible - literally nothing polished by the media.
Personally, at 47 years old, with two grown children, I wouldn't dare to take on some responsible positions, knowing that I'm doing them with the proper knowledge and perspective. But for them? 20 years, complete peace and godliness...
I think it would be reasonable to move the 40-year age limit for the Chamber of Deputies, which is for the election of a senator, and here, on the contrary, I would give 50 years so that one has some perspective.
Andrej Babiš was recently tasked by the president with forming a new government and is currently negotiating with the SPD and Motoristy about a coalition. How do you assess this situation? Can we expect a stable government, or is it more of a political necessity that brings a lot of risks? What consequences could such an ally have for the future of Czech politics and for the stability of the country?
I firmly believe (hope) that Babiše will keep an eye on the new faces and maybe they will manage to push through some of their programs – especially against the Green Deal nonsense and other European agendas. But I personally fear that Babiš will end up nodding to whatever Brussels wants of it anyway.
Of course, forget about any accounting for Covid crimes - but people chose that themselves when Babiš announced that he would call Vojtěch again - by doing so, people gave him a blank check that Covid was completely forgotten for them.
Well, we'll see – I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic...
In connection with the rise of Babiše, there are concerns that the new government could make fundamental changes in the field of public media. How do you perceive this trend? Should public media be reformed, or do they need to be protected from political influences? What is your opinion on what their role in democracy and public life should look like?
I will honestly say that before Covid, I would have been one of those who would have gone to defend the freedom of Czech Television and its independence, even with a sleeping bag, as it was before. But after what Czech Television and the Czech Republic have been demonstrating since Covid? Not for anything!
Yes, we need independent public media – we need them badly, but we haven't had them for a long time. On the contrary, we have a mouthpiece for dangerous pro-regime lies and manipulations, and nothing is better than this. And I'm afraid that CT is an irreformable juggernaut and a black hole for money that has long ceased to fulfill its legal public function. So for me, cancel it without compensation! Why should I be required to pay for something that I don't consume and I know how bad and false it is?
And I write this as someone who has experience with their procedures and the complete rigidity of that institution, because I dealt with the co-production of both of my Goat Stories with Czech Television, so I know exactly what I'm talking about...
If we stay with ČT. In mid-October, an unexpected thing happened on the program Otázky Václava Moravec. Václav Moravec ended the debate prematurely when, due to an argument in the studio - according to him - politicians stopped respecting him and did not answer the questions he asked. The guests were Patrik Nacher, Zdeněk Hřib, Jindřich Rajchl and Marek Výborný. What is your opinion on this situation? Did Moravec have the right to interrupt the debate, or was it too authoritative a step in a live broadcast? How should public television respond to similar situations?
After it happened, I commented on it on my Facebook with the words: "Václav, end it about 3 minutes in advance so we can write for a week what an ill-mannered desolate Jindra Rajchl is..." and I think I wasn't far from the truth at all.
It was a completely undignified farce and, as many people have already said, Moravec should have intervened much earlier – but not against Jindřich Rajchla, but against Hřib, who completely deviated from the topic for long minutes and began to present his prepared plot against Jindřich Rajchla. And the hysterical ending with Moravec, I think, was just a pre-prepared full stop...
But as I answered in the previous post - if we don't cancel the entire Czech Television immediately, then we should definitely cancel OVM, Czech Television Reporters, Phenomenon of the Time and other purpose-built mouthpieces of the regime and completely false and propaganda programs.
Let's also touch on your writing. In your books, you often explore the theme of freedom, manipulation, and personal responsibility — whether on a political, media, or spiritual level. What do you think is the current development of freedom in our society? Do you feel that freedom in the Czech Republic and the European Union is expanding, or is it being lost under the pressure of bureaucracy, censorship, and ideological influences? Where do you think the line lies between protecting society and restricting individual freedoms?
As we have seen many times in the past, people simply do not see when they lose that freedom. They did not see it with the rise of Nazism or communism, and today it is even more refined and gradual. The system has perfected the sausage method, people simply do not see it. What is even worse, they often do not want to see it on purpose. It is exactly the same as in the first years of the war – Berlin was a beautiful, flourishing city, where construction was taking place, there were flowers everywhere, polished trams and a beautiful life. Who would be interested in the truth on the Eastern Front, or even some concentration camps... Those were the same "desolate" slander and "disinformation" for people as they are for them today when you tell them that people are imprisoned here for their opinions, that there is censorship and people are afraid to say what they think...
Do you have anything coming up in the near future that you would like to share with our readers? What direction are you taking in the field of art and what topics are inspiring you the most right now?
After more factual books like A Guide down the Rabbit hole, where I mapped all the covid, financial, vaccine and green-deal scams and everything that has happened to us in recent years, I have now started writing fiction again. It will be a bit of a love story from a totalitarian world, so I am looking forward to finally diving into writing again.
At the end of this year, Albatros' license for my first books Butterfly Cry and Chandelier for the Pope also expires, so I am preparing a reissue, this time at my own publishing house, where I will be publishing from 2022. I publish all books.. And as I go through those books again, I realize how relevant they are today – especially A Chandelier for the Pope, which is a story based on true events from communist camps. I decided to add a short afterword to that book so that people would realize that totalitarianism does not always have to come only from the East, but also from the other side, and it does not always have to be red, but can be painted in a bright green ideological green, or in blue with a circle of bright yellow stars…
Marek Bláha asked for the Parliamentary Gazette
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