If we flipped through the newspapers in the autumn of 2010 or surfed the news sites in the coming winter, what would we read? One corruption suspicion of Dodea politicians followed another, the vévêtes began to colour and it became clear to some that, with John and Barta in government, the anti-corruption goat had become a gardener in a garden full of juicy vegetable opportunities. In retrospect, we know from the cases surrounding Petr Nečas and his mistress-organised system of gifts and kickbacks that it was much worse. However, even what we knew at the time was so strong that the company was looking for some way to initiate a remedy. So there was a breeding ground for remediation. At that time, either several previously established entities (the Revival Association) were strengthened or new entities were created, such as the Foundation Against Corruption and the Reconstruction of the State initiative.
When the Anti-Corruption Foundation was launched in early 2011 with a major press conference, there was great hope that a number of strong and decent businessmen with a robust financial background were actually capable of cracking down on various specific bad guys. It was also at that time that several major cases were brought into the public domain and a change in the legislative environment was initiated. There was, for example, the elimination of anonymous bearer shares. The amendment of the relevant law also brought about a certain shift in public procurement law. It was then a period of a kind of crumb politics, it was not possible to change the system, but a number of instruments at least made life more difficult for scoundrels.
In this climate, the figure of Attorney General Pavel Zeman also seemed like an apparition from another world. He managed to eliminate figures like the tandem of prosecutors Vlastimil Rampula and Libor Grygárek from the Prague Chief Prosecutor’s Office. When they were replaced by personalities such as chief prosecutor Lenka Bradáčová, things started to happen.
Unfortunately, Andrej Babiš has taken advantage of the demand for change following seven years of corruption in the country with another “anti-corruption” project, but that is the subject of other chapters in this book.
