Czechs head to the polls to elect next president

Prague – Three months after the election of the populist Eurosceptic and billionaire Andrej Babis to high minister, Czechs will once again head to the polls this weekend to elect a brand fresh president.

Voting takes keep on Friday and Saturday.

The favourite within the field of 9 candidates vying for a keep within the election dart-off later this month is the outspoken incumbent, President Milos Zeman, who at 73 has watched his nation change into extra politically divided right via his five-yr tenure.

As a member of an an increasing number of correct-cruise regional alliance of Central European international locations named the Visegrad Community that entails Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the Czech Republic stands at an ideological crossroads with the upward thrust of the nation’s xenophobic far correct, which rose to parliament in October’s legislative elections.

We are in a field the keep if everything goes badly we are able to be confronted with regime swap, and though no longer one other dictatorship, we would possibly possibly well clean presumably change into an illiberal democracy

Jiri Pehe, director of Contemporary York University in Prague

Zeman has been a vocal opponent of Muslim integration and is viewed as sympathetic to authoritarian regimes, while additionally turning into possible the most Kremlin’s most accurate allies in Europe.

They are views caring many Czechs, who pain that their nation will most likely be backsliding from a democratic map they fought so fervently to total right via the 1989 Velvet Revolution ending four a protracted time under communism.

« Via a imaginable swap in terms of a political crawl, right here is indubitably significant presidential election [in recent history].

« We are in a field the keep if everything goes badly we are able to be confronted with regime swap, and though no longer one other dictatorship, we would possibly possibly well clean presumably change into an illiberal democracy, » said political analyst Jiri Pehe, director of Contemporary York University in Prague.

« It would gift the stay of the first democratic republic and the onset of the second republic. »

Since the split of Czechoslovakia 25 years ago, the presidency has change correct into a fairly ceremonial keep with a restricted but no longer insignificant scope of obligations that entails appointing excessive-ranking authorities positions and assembly international heads of utter.

The president is additionally expected to approach the nation’s political trajectory by toeing the line of insurance policies of the elected parliament. That has no longer been Zeman’s contrivance.

In one instance in October, then Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka accused Zeman of interfering in Czech international affairs and contradicting the authorities when he repeated his stance against sanctions Russia over the Ukraine disaster, while defending Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula as irreversible.

Zeman’s speech « used to be in titillating contradiction of our international policy and the president had no mandate to total it, » Sobotka said at the time.

What is at stake?

Capitalising on rising disdain for the nation’s dysfunctional authorities within the democratic generation, Prime Minister Babis has promised to consolidate the characteristic of authorities in favour of a stronger executive, drawing strong criticism from his opponents.

On Wednesday, Zeman pledged to stand by the caretaker high minister even though it is unlikely he’ll be ready to take a vote of self belief from parliament.

With President Zeman all but declaring for Babis and no signs that the latter would be ready to originate a authorities earlier than Zeman’s term expires in early March, a brand fresh president would possibly possibly well assemble himself within the keep of calling for snap elections if Zeman has no longer already appointment him high minister.

« If Babis isn’t any longer but appointed but is informally purchasing for make stronger for his gov’t by that time, a brand fresh president would possibly possibly well simply stop it, so the timing of these actions will most likely be in actuality significant in this full ingredient, » said Pehe.

A fight for Czech identification?

For many Czechs, the stakes are great elevated. The election will aid as a barometer of the fight for an identification for a nation that has an increasing number of moved away from innovative European integration and politics and in direction of nativism.

Standing against the faded genuine-western political establishment that has dominated within the Czech Republic within the early Nineties, Zeman has many cases shunned EU refugee quotas and lent his make stronger to Tomio Okamura, the anti-Islamic, anti-EU chief of the Freedom and Reveal Democracy occasion (SPD) that got right here to energy in October.

« Ever since the starting of our statehood a thousand years ago, the Czechs salvage belonged to the European West. There would possibly possibly well be no ideological division on this request and there would possibly possibly well be no ideological division in questions akin to human rights and the checks and balances of a worn liberal democracy, » said Michal Horacek, a track producer, founding father of 1 of the nation’s most involving making a wager firm’s, and fair presidential candidate.

Who else is working?

Elections within the Czech Republic repeatedly are inclined to characteristic a cast of surreal characters who would possibly possibly well without anguish be placed in a Kafka fresh. Moreover to to Zeman – a heavy smoker and proud drinker – is Czech singer Petr Hannig and broken-down high minister Mirek Topolanek, who in 2009 used to be famously photographed naked with topless ladies individuals at one of broken-down Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s villas.

The most excessive challengers to the incumbent though are the genuine-EU left of centre Horacek and the sixty eight-yr-former centrist and broken-down Czech Academy of Sciences chairman, Jiri Drahos.

« Zeman’s charm is connected no longer simplest with strong anti-immigrant attacks, but additionally with some form of Euroscepticism. If Mr. Drahos wins, the president’s portray will most likely be loads of because Drahos is psychological oriented without a radical imaginative and prescient, » Lubomir Kopecek, a political analyst at Masaryk University in Brno, educated Al Jazeera.

Who will take?

If Zeman fails to take 50 % of the vote required for an outright victory in this weekend’s election – which is expected – then two candidates will compete in a runoff scheduled for later this month.

Some native polls gaze Zeman narrowly beat Drahos in a runoff, while Czech Television released a poll on Monday that has Drahos edging the president with forty eight.5 % of the vote to Zeman’s forty four %. Fixed with that identical poll, Zeman is at menace of gain Forty two.5 % within the first round to Drahos’ 27.5 %.

« It’s factual too early to repeat what’s going to occur, » said Pehe.