Czech economy has made a great progress in the last two decades, however unpleasant the GDP numbers look like in the last year or two. Since the collapse of Communism in 1989, the Czech GDP jumped from around USD 2,000 per capita to nearly USD 20,000 now. In other words, some 10 times more in nominal terms!
At the same time, Czech Republic's public debt increased from around 10-15% of GDP at the beginning of 1990's to 45% now.
There have been many discussions about who deserves the credit, or who's fault it is. It's politics, so most debates and outcomes are heavily affected by what camp you belong to...
Well, having the data in our database and playing with numbers for two decades now, we decided to bend the statistics too. Without going into much details, here are the "winners an losers" of our exercise about "The Best/Luckiest Czech Republic's Prime Minister Of The Last Two Decades":
1. Václav Klaus - despite rising GDP per capita by "only" USD 524 a year and leaving a plenty of hidden losses such as from bankrupt state banks, his Government had to deal with the most difficult internal and external environment
2. Mirek Topolánek - the biggest increase in GDP thanks heavily to strong global markets. Corruption and lack of public finance reform on the negative side
3. Jiří Paroubek - strong GDP growth within his one year premiership, so more a luck rather than a well-deserved hard work
On the other hand, here are the biggest "losers" of our exercise:
1. Jan Fischer - thanks mainly to weak performance of the economy and legacy of further debts (such as from solar subsidies).
2. Petr Nečas - for weak performance of the economy and a complete failure of his Government's reforms. The latter should be underlined twice given the fact he started his Government with the biggest parliamentary majority in the history of the Czech Republic
Helgi Library 
