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Jaroslav Bašta, a member of the SPD and candidate for the presidency in 2023, died at the age of 75 after a long illness. Barbora Šťastná, the spokesperson of the movement, informed about it. According to media information from the end of May last year, Bašta was in a serious condition in the hospital, and since about mid-May he excused himself from the meetings of the lower house for health reasons.
“A man of firm principles and one of the last active politicians of the pre-November dissent has left. A worthy, decent and noble person who did a lot for the SPD, the Czech Republic and its citizens. Honor to his memory,” said SPD spokeswoman Šťastná.
“I have always respected Jaroslav Bašta very much as a completely honest person. I am very sorry that he is no longer with us,” former president Miloš Zeman said on Facebook.
In the past, Bašta belonged to the leading ČSSD politicians. He held the parliamentary mandate for this party from 1996 to 2000. As a minister without portfolio, he sat in the government of Miloš Zeman from 1998 to 2000. He was ambassador to Russia (2000 to 2005) and Ukraine (2007 to 2010).
A longtime member of the Social Democracy
He was a member of the Social Democracy from 1994 to 2019, when he left the party. In the same year, he joined the Security, Responsibility, Solidarity (BOS) movement, for which he unsuccessfully ran for the European Parliament and which he became chairman of in autumn 2020. In 2021, he joined the SPD.
In the lower house, he was a member of the foreign affairs committee for the SPD and the chairman of its subcommittee for external economic relations. He also served in the permanent committee for the control of the activities of the Security Information Service.
So far, the last MP who died during his mandate was ODS MP Jiří Ventruba in March 2021, who was hospitalized with a severe course of covid-19. Bašta should be replaced in the lower house by Marcel Dlask, the administrative director of the Chvaletic power plant.
