It is almost for sure that the Green Party will undergo another change after this weekend's congress. I will not be the first change in its fifteen years old history, but will be one of the most important ones. What can we expect from it?

The last big transformation of the Czech Greens started in 2003, when me and my colleagues initiated a movement seeking the resurgence of the party and cleaning it from the representatives who were proving their organizational capabilities by organizing multi-million financial machinations, while the party kept remaining politically untrustworthy with no clear progam. During past two years, we have succeeded to resolve huge debts from the past, to build up viable nation-wide structure, to present a progressive political programme, to raise its election preferences from between 1 or 2 up to 3 or 4 today, to win a big victory in the autumn of 2004 when we got the first ever Green senator and first ever seats in regional parliament (two in Southern Moravia).

Despite these obvious achievements, it was more and more clear that the main enemy of even larger success lies inside our party. A year ago, the congress in Olomouc elected a new presidency, composed of representatives from both leadership and opposition, in a hope to launch their cooperation and resolve our internal crisis. Unfortunatelly, the party opposition kept rejecting numerous offers for reconciliation and continued to further divide the party and go on with the war, with an aim to win a total victory.

One of the most importants reasons why I decided to enter the political world was my fierce disconent with the quality of our domestic politics and my resolution to participate in building up of more respectable alternative. This is why I am really deeply hurt by vilifications, politicking and hypocritical alliances, that are now becoming a standard for some people in our Green Party - even worse, such a strategy seems to be a winning one. My counter-candidate, Martin Bursik, is joining the old strucutres who are provable responsible for catastrophic party economy; he is even attacking the fact that we took some of the to court for unjustified payment of almost two million “present” to one of their colleagues and a then-member of presidency. The one, who is loyal, is tolerated for his violence on women. I am sorry to say that the political style, applied by the upcoming leadership of Green Party on its way to power, is hardly different from what we see on other parliamentary parties and what - for good reasons - make people so frustrated from politics. By behaving this way, I believe, the Greens are loosing the most important part of the identity.

However, I do undestand that for an observed from outside, it is virtually impossible to get oriented in these internal fights. But there are other, I hope more clear, examples that can illustrate the different understanding of green politics: this is the political programme and election strategy.

I am convinced that who else than the Greens are the ones who are not afraid of controversial issues and of their unconventional handling, the ones who must provoke to some level, the ones who ruffle the dirty sediments of our political scene. By far not only in the area of environmental policy, but even more importantly, in the issues of culture, education, security, or crucial problem of media and communication in the public space. When I hear today from the upcoming new chair of our party that “decriminalization (!) of marihuana is too controversial” or that he “can imagine cooperation with Social Democrats as well as with nationalistic-conservative ODS party, then I really do not understand what will be the difference - besides larger emphasize on ecology - between Green Party and, let's say, the Christian Democrats. I am afraid that by choosing this strategy, the Greens are too soon becoming a mainstream, unable to convince young to give them their votes, so that Green Party brings something refreshing and more human into Czech Parliament.

The third problematic issue - besides internal political cultiure and political programme - is the question, whether Greens should run in the upcoming parliamentary election alone, or in alliance with some liberal partners. I am in favour of the second option, and here is my reason.

The fears from “Blue Tsunami” after possible election victory of nationalistic conservative ODS, as we can hear them from many sides, are probably exaggerated in the aspect that they consider the ODS victory to be a matter of fact. In reality, as we can see on the example of last weeks German election, this populist right-wing party does not have its success guaranteed. In the other hand, if they really win, we can truly expect a disaster not only in the field of environment, but - primarily - maybe irreversible harm of the quality of democracy. Considering the political situation in longer-term prospect, I see the real and big threat of the change of our election system from proportional to majority one. This is the goal that ODS and Klaus, todays president, were systematically working on for years. If ODS succeds, with support of Social Democrats, or Communists (or parts of both), in serious distortion of even abandonment of election proportionality, then the chance of Green Party, as well as of other smaller parties, to influence the political decision making will be fundamentally diminished.

If we are serious in saying that we, the Greens, seek more significant role in decision making, so that we can push through our political vision, then it is our primary goal to take care of keeping the conditions existing for such ambitions. And obviously, we can prevent change of election system much better if we join our forces with other smaller, liberal parties with whom we should therefore build up an election allience in 2006. Otherwise, it can easily happen that we will get just over 5 % threshold, win several mandates in parliament - but then in 2010 no single mandate, even if would increase our election result up to the level of Greens in Germany.

By ignoring this threat, we would commit a historical mistake, unjustifiable self-centedness, and political amateurism. Because it is broad social responsibility and thinking in time horizons longer than one election period, that we the Greens consider to be our strongest qualities.