Retired general Petr Pavel is ahead of billionaire former prime minister Andrej Babiš after the first round of the Czech presidential election, making the former NATO commander the favorite for a run-off election in two weeks.
Babiš, who was this week acquitted of fraud charges related to €2 million in EU funds, won 35 percent of the vote in the first round while his main rival Pavel got 35.4 percent, according to preliminary results. Voter turnout, which followed a fiercely fought campaign, was 68 percent, up from 62 percent in 2018.
While the Czech constitution gives executive powers to the government rather than the president, the new office holder sometimes has significant influence on foreign policy, including the incumbent Miloš Zeman who supports Babiš to succeed him.
During his tenure as prime minister, Babiš caused alarm in Brussels because of his admiration for Donald Trump, who was the US president at the time. In this month’s presidential campaign, he has been an outsider ready to challenge from the presidency of the coalition government blamed for pushing the country into economic stagnation.
“Unfortunately we have had several episodes of the president pushing his powers to extreme limits and then it is very difficult to block this,” said Czech member of the European parliament Luděk Niedermayer. “People like Zeman have used the opacity of our constitution to gain more power.”
Zeman, who is completing his second term in office and is barred by the constitution from running again, has caused controversy by involving himself in foreign policy and embracing Russia and China as key partners. He only turned his back on Russian president Vladimir Putin after Moscow’s all-out attack on Ukraine last February.
Pavel, who chaired NATO’s military committee between 2015 and 2018, said he entered politics to “restore integrity” to the presidency and reverse Zeman’s foreign policy drive.
The former NATO general won a majority of votes in the capital Prague while Babiš fared better in rural and less densely populated areas, according to a government report on Saturday.
Economist Danuše Nerudová, who hopes to become her country’s first female head of state, came in an unexpected third, with less than 14 percent of the vote.
Pavel is currently the favorite to win the presidency as Nerudová and several other contenders have indicated they will support anyone but Babiš in the January 27-28 runoff. A runoff was required because no candidate won an absolute majority on Saturday.
Capucine May, an eastern European analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, said Babiš would be a president who seeks “to get involved in politics,” undermining Czech prime minister Petr Fiala’s governing coalition.
On the contrary, he said, Pavel’s victory would give “warmer relations with the EU and create a stable policy because the governing coalition will be supported by a supportive president”.