by Manuel Alvarez-Rivera, Puerto Ricobr /br /The Czech Republic will be holding an early general election later this year - nearly a year ahead of schedule - after the center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek was brought down last week in a parliamentary no-confidence vote. Topolánek, who submitted his resignation last Thursday but remains as caretaker head of government and leader of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) - the largest party in the Central European country's bicameral legislature - subsequently reached an agreement with former Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek, the leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (#268;SSD) - the main opposition force - to hold an early poll next October; a specific date remains to be determined.br /br /Prime Minister Topolánek came to office following a closely fought general election in June 2006, which left the Chamber of Deputies - the lower house of the Czech Parliament ...

Three cheers for Topolanek!

Never heard of him? Neither had we until this morning. But on the front page of today’s Financial Times, we discover two extraordinary things. Topolanek is the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (and coincidentally, president of the European Union). And, he has a very accurate road map.

“The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s,” he says, “such as wide-ranging stimuluses, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the Buy American campaign and so on. All these steps, their combination and their permanency, are the road to hell.”

We’ve said so ourselves. Many times. But we are surprised to find the president of the world’s biggest and richest economy – Europe – say so. It made us feel funny…odd…as if we weren’t alone in the world after all…as if we had a friend. And a friend in a high place.

At least, he was in a high place this week. He lost

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