People who grow up wanting to be an MP, minister or president have an advantage over businesspeople who catch the bug for politics later in life. Andrej Babiš is no doubt right when he says that nobody would care much about Stork’s Nest if he hadn’t entered politics. Nor would anyone have shown much interest in Věslav Michalik’s Cyprus activities if he hadn’t wanted to be industry minister. After he gave up the effort under the media pressure, Michalik faded back into the background, and his business ties remained unexplained. In Jan., then-Vice Chair Stanislav Polčák of STAN told MFD that as an investment banker, Michalik kept some things from his party and had to. In some business circles, Michalik was considered naive and surprisingly amateur because he hadn’t hidden his undisclosed assets better, not because he had them in the first place. Michalik, who died on Sun., might have left even more of a mark on politics if he had developed a craving for power earlier in life.

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