Weak leadership still clouding East Europe economic success

Global chains like Starbucks and McDonalds have replaced grubby kiosks and countries around the region have cleaned up their rivers and air. Shiny skyscrapers have appeared in Warsaw.

But a survey conducted by the CBOS pollster in April showed 89 percent of Poles saw corruption was a big problem and only 14 percent thought it had been decreasing from over recent years.

“Most Poles feel that, regardless of who they vote for, all politicians equally take bribes and focus on themselves rather than on ruling the country once elected,” said Jaroslaw Zbieranek, expert on democratic institutions at the Institute of Public Affairs think-tank based in Warsaw.

“This is the major problem here — to rebuild the political elites by gradually introducing young people, who were not brought up or educated under communism,” said Zbieranek.

Apart from graft, governments from the region have often puzzled western counterparts by messy politics.

Squabbling in the Czech Republic, understood by few abroad, toppled the government this year in the middle of the country's term as EU president, damaging its reputation at a time when it was in the international spotlight.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski irritated Germany by bringing up the number of Poles killed in World War Two as an argument to get more voting power in the EU. Diplomats also remember a clash between the president and the prime minister over who could take the government plane to an EU summit.

In Slovakia, the ruling coalition of Robert Fico — a former communist who once said that he did not even notice the changes of 1989 — includes former strongman Vladimir Meciar and a nationalist party whose boss had once called for Slovaks to mount tanks and ride into neighboring Hungary.

West European politicians are no saints and a number have been called to account in the courts. But legal battles are quite rare in central and eastern Europe where very few politicians have been tried for abuses of office.

Slovenia is the least corrupt ex-communist country in Europe in rankings by Transparency International, a non-government group monitoring graft. But it is still behind 11 of the 15 countries that were EU members before the union enlarged to the east.

The bottom of the table within the EU is firmly occupied by the new members, with Bulgaria and Romania ranked lowest. Hungary and Bulgaria have slid back in recent years.

Some analysts such as Robin Shepherd, director of international affairs at the London-based Henry Jackson Society, believe, though, that the glass is much more full than empty and the growing pains of democracies should not be overplayed.

“Generally things have gone very well in CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) and if there is still much to do that does not necessarily mean that western Europe is an appropriate model from here on out,” he said.

But Havel sees the chance only in the grandchildren of people who are around 50, because their already adult offspring are still tainted by being brought up in the shade of communism.

“Sooner or later the moment will come when children of these children will start joining public life, and my hope is that then public life will be thoroughly illuminated.”

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