Then a ruptured colon followed by acute peritonitis sentenced the 61-year-old president to 20 days' intensive care in Innsbruck much of it in artificially induced sleep.

He flew back on an air ambulance last week and remains hospitalised, his chances of recovery to play kingmaker after the June 19-20 elections still uncertain.

The dissident playwright who launched the 1989 revolt against communist rule is still widely respected abroad. At home, too, many regarded him as a moral compass in the transition to capitalism.

Yet Havel has lost his once phenomenal rating with Czechs. A family battle over property, and his second marriage -- less than a year after his first wife died -- to an actress 16 years his junior has made him the target of once-unthinkable jokes.