See This Guy? He Won’t Be the President of the Czech Republic
Three things about Vladimir Franz:
(1) He’s a composer from the Czech Republic who loves his country.
(2) He’s something of a political wonk with strong opinions on how the country should be governed.
(3) He has tattoos covering pretty much his entire body.
With almost all votes counted in the Czech presidential election, the outsider Vladimir Franz has slipped from a balance-holding third position to an insignificant fifth. He won just 6.84 percent of the vote and is out of the run-off, which will be between the former prime minister Jan Zeman (24.2%) and the patrician foreign minister Karl Schwarzenberg (23.4%), a prince by heritage. These two will vie to succeed the longterm president, Vaclav Klaus.
Mr Franz can now concentrate on staging his Capek opera, War with the Newts, at the National Theatre.
Go to Arts Journal to see a more revealing picture of Mr. Franz.
