Clientelism and distorted privatization generated rich people, oligarchs and other powerful figures on the other side of the Morava River. A Czech example is the story of the late Tomáš Ježek (who died in 2017).
He studied labour economics at the Faculty of National Economy of the University of Economics in Prague. Subsequently, he worked as a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CSAS) and at the same time he completed a study stay at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Switzerland. At that time he translated several works of liberal economists for the samizdat.
Just before the fall of the regime, he worked as a researcher at the prognostic institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1989 he helped found the political party ODA. In the 1990 elections he was elected to the Czech National Council on behalf of the Civic Forum. From January to June 1990, he worked at the Federal Ministry of Finance as an advisor to the minister who was Václav Klaus, and after the first free elections in June 1990, he was a minister without portfolio in the Czech government of Petr Pithart. He was responsible for the administration of national property and its privatisation. Together with Václav Klaus, he was behind the idea of coupon privatisation.
He was re-elected in the 1992 elections, now on the ODA ticket. He was chairman of the Budget Committee. From 1992 to 1994 he was also Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Property Fund of the Czech Republic.
In February 1995, Ježek moved from the ODA to the ODS parliamentary club. He came into conflict with the ODA and sided with the ruling majority, which was accused of using mafia practices.
He ran unsuccessfully for a senate seat in the 1996 elections. During the crisis of the second Klaus government in late 1997, he sided with the opposition against Václav Klaus.
In November 1997, he declared that the culprits of the current situation in the Czech Republic were the top leaders of the ODS and that he could imagine Ivan Pilip as the new chairman of the Civic Democrats. In January 1998 he supported the formation of a new splinter party, the Freedom Union, and announced his participation in its first meeting in Litomyšl. He resigned from the ODS and severely criticised his former ally Klaus.
Since April 1998 he has served as a member of the Presidium of the Securities Commission. In January 1999, the government’s Committee for the Protection of Economic Interests, headed by Jaroslav Bašta, filed a criminal complaint against him on suspicion of machinations at the time of the privatisation of Čokoládovna Praha. Ježek denied the charges and called on Bašta to retract his statements. He subsequently filed a criminal complaint against Bašta himself.
Despite attempts to oust him, Ježek’s term on the Securities Commission did not expire until March 2002. His lawsuit against Jaroslav Bašta was decided by the High Court at the end of 2003. The court ordered the government to apologise to Ježek.
In 2004 he ran unsuccessfully in the Senate by-election. This heralded his final withdrawal from political office. Throughout his career, he devoted himself to academic activities – he taught at the Faculty of National Economy at the University of Economics in Prague and at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.
Since 2005, he has served as President of the Association of Financial Intermediaries and Financial Advisors of the Czech Republic, since 2003 he has been Chairman of the Board of the Czech Music Fund Foundation, and in 2005 he was appointed by the Municipal Court in Prague as a court expert in public finance, banking and capital market. His career, however, has left a bitter end. Long-standing disputes with Klaus, Zeman and the admission that wild privatisation was not the best solution to transform the economy.
