My fascination with Václav Havel and the Velvet Revolution continues:
There are free elections and an election campaign ahead of us... Let us not allow the sympathies of the world, which we have won so fast, to be equally rapidly lost through our becoming entangled in the jungle of skirmishes for power. Let us not allow the desire to serve oneself to bloom once again under the stately garb of the desire to serve the common good. It is not really important now which party, club or group prevails in the elections. The important thing is that the winners will be the best of us, in the moral, civic, political and professional sense, regardless of their political affiliations. The future policies and prestige of our state will depend on the personalities we select, and later, elect to our representative bodies.
- Havel, Václav. “New Year’s Address to the Nation.” The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice: Speeches and Writings, 1990–1996, translated by Paul Wilson et al., Alfred A. Knopf, 1997, p. 8.
Our problems seem so very very small compared to those faced by the emerging Czechoslovakia post collapse of the Soviet Union. Havel's dedication to truth (painfully blunt at times), seeking the moral and spiritual dimension of politics, and maintaining hope as a state of mind will serve all candidates well as we look forward to the months to come.