The communist secret police spied on Czech President Vaclav Klaus from 1984 until 1986 when, as a central bank employee, he organized economics seminars labelled by an informant as "non-Marxist and right-wing", Mlada fronta Dnes daily said Wednesday, according to dpa. "The source stated...that his conduct and behaviour suggests he feels like an unrecognized genius," the newspaper quoted from Klaus' file preserved in the Interior Ministry archives. "He makes it clear that who does not go along with his ideas and opinions is simply stupid and incompetent," it added. The secret police had not only monitored the seminars put on by Klaus but also tapped his phone and searched his office, the report said. However, unlike his predecessor and rival Vaclav Havel, the current Czech president was not a dissident during the communist regime, and in recent years has spoken against putting dissidents on a pedestal at the expense of the obedient masses. "I disagree with those who are criticizing ordinary people that they have collaborated with the totalitarian regime, that they did not rise, did not protest," he wrote in 2003, adding that the passive, resigned lifestyle of the ordinary Czechs had "created conditions" for the fall of communism. The upcoming presidential election next year may turn into a duel between one of those ordinary Czechs and a communist-era dissident. Klaus, who plans to seek a re-election, may face dissident-turned- post-communist foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier, who said in April that he is ready to run against the popular incumbent if approached by the left.
