Czechs to vote in presidential election
People in the Czech Republic are to head to the polls on Friday to elect the EU member country’s next president in a race led by pro-Russia President Milos Zeman and a liberal, pro-West rival.
Polling stations are to open Friday at 1300 GMT in an election that pits Zeman against a group of nine candidates led by Jiri Drahos, a former chief of the Czech Academy of Sciences who favors closer ties with the European Union.
Surveys show the 73-year-old incumbent president, who has been accused of promoting an environment of “vulgarity, incompetence, and corruption,” leading his competitors.
Zeman’s other rivals include ex-gambler and songwriter Michal Horacek, former right-wing premier Mirek Topolanek, and Vratislav Kulhanek, a former head of Czech carmaker Skoda Auto.
The polls further indicate that Zeman is not likely to score an outright majority in the first round and is set to face a run-off election on January 26-27, in which he is predicted to lose to Drahos.
The polls — which will close Friday at 2100 GMT and continue on Saturday at 0700-1300 GMT — are widely regarded as a referendum on Zeman’s anti-refugee stance.
Another recent poll commissioned by Czech Television showed that Drahos would defeat Zeman in a second round race with 48.5 percent of the vote against 44 percent for the incumbent.
“Of course I’m nervous,” Zeman told top-selling Czech daily Dnes on Thursday, noting that he was anticipating a “difficult” run-off.
Zeman’s campaign rhetoric echoes that of some other eastern European leaders — particularly in Hungary and Poland — who are in conflict with Brussels over mandatory refugee quotas and various rules, which they regard as restrictions on their national sovereignty.
He further holds harsh anti-Muslim views, having once described the 2015 refugee crisis as “an organized invasion” of Europe and said that Muslims were “impossible to integrate.”
The 68-year-old Drahos, on the other hand, is portrayed in local news reports as a mild-mannered liberal centrist who has called on Prague to “play a more active role in the EU.”
He has vowed to reverse Zeman’s affable approach to Russia and instead reaffirm the Czech Republic’s dedication to the EU and the US-led NATO military alliance. This is while Zeman has urged referendums on continued membership in both blocs.
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