A new scandal is brewing in which it appears that while investigating an influential power broker in Prague back in 2007, Czech secret services may have caught him speaking with then-Prague mayor Pavel Bem. Their discussions included city planning, appointments to lucrative posts in public companies, and land sales. If the article in the Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes is accurate, it suggests a higher level of clientelism and private-sector control of public officials than was previously suspected. More worrying are allegations that the tapes fell into the hands of the ABL security company, run by Vit Barta, a rising political star who would eventually become Minister of Transportation.
