Prague/Zagreb - Czech politicians are taking their election campaign to Croatian beaches as voters get set for early parliamentary polls just weeks after the summer holidays. Ex-premier Mirek Topolanek and three vice-chairmen of his center- right Civic Democrats gradually strip to swim trunks on a series of billboards dotting the highway to the Adriatic.
Some 800,000 Czechs vacationed at Croatia's beach resorts last year, a tourism group said.
"We want to entertain people on the way to their holidays," said one pictured politician David Vodrazka. "I just hope no one will crash while looking at us."
Czechs are known for their self-deprecating humour, while Topolanek recently achieved notoriety over a nude photo snapped during his vacation at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Sardinian villa.
Topolanek was ousted from power in a parliamentary vote of no- confidence on March 24, which led to the October 9-10 election, originally set for June 2010.
Whether 100 billboards across Croatia and nine in Slovenia will spare Topolanek defeat by the leftist Social Democrats in October will not be known until then.
But the swimsuit campaign, up since Wednesday, has already amused Croatians whose politicians do not embark on such lighthearted escapades.
"These billboards simply cannot pass unnoticed," said Tomislav Klaki, 44, a Zagreb civil servant. "Even the people who have no clue who Topolanek is now stop and ask: Who the hell is that?"
