This side of life indeed shows a rather gloomy face at the moment. Many people – the opinion polls corroborate this – are disturbed, disappointed or even disgusted by the general condition of society in our country. Many believe that – democracy or no democracy – power is again in the hands of untrustworthy figures whose primary concern is their personal advancement instead of the interests of the people.…The prevalent opinion is that it pays off in this country to lie and to steal; that many politicians and civil servants are corruptible; that political parties – though they all declare honest intentions in lofty words – are covertly manipulated by suspicious financial groupings. An increasing number of people are disgusted by politics, which they hold responsible – and rightly so – for all these adverse developments. As a consequence, they have begun to feel suspicious of us all, or even take an aversion to us – notwithstanding the fact that they freely elected us for our offices (Havel 1999).