Sieť party leader Radoslav Procházka (source: SITA)
The fall of Radoslav Procházka wasn’t special. It did not provoke passions, like the departure of those who fall from up high usually do.
It rather leaves the aftertaste of uneasiness, since many will remember not the intended pathos but rather those few indecencies that Procházka’s microphone recorded.
The gradual dissolution of Sieť does not come through as a shock either, since Procházka turned the party into something for instant use once he deprived it of any content other than his ego. Procházka did not grow into the slogans that he was proclaiming.
Sieť now has the strength of a spiderweb in the coalition of four. And the crumbs of self-respect that the party could have kept even after Saturday are unlikely to maintain even its famed hashtag.
Those few members who are left do have some survival instincts. They will do the thing that political parties in Slovakia have do to perfection: they will regroup in some hardly legible shape. And voters will forget the reasons why they voted for them some time ago.
If Sieť leaves behind anything positive, it should be a lesson for the newly-emerging parties about how things shouldn’t be done.
