The Czechs choose their president in a tight ballot

A billionaire, a general and an academic are the favorites in the first round of the Czech presidential election which begins Friday and ends on Saturday and which observers consider very tight.

The winner will replace at the head of the country Milos Zeman, a veteran politician known for his outspokenness and his taste for alcohol, whose last mandate ends in March.

The winner will have to face record inflation and exorbitant deficits in public finances due to the war in Ukraine, while the Czech Republic has just completed its rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.

If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the votes in the first round, a second round will oppose the two who will have come first on January 27 and 28.

“If you asked me to bet (on the outcome), I wouldn’t do it,” Petr Just, an analyst at the Metropolitan University of Prague, told AFP.

Populist ex-prime minister Andrej Babis, retired general Petr Pavel and university professor Danuse Nerudova are vying to become the Czech Republic’s fourth president since it was created in 1993 after splitting from Slovakia.

Business tycoon and former prime minister Mr Babis, 68, is the fifth richest person in the Czech Republic, according to Forbes magazine.

– Six glasses of wine, three shots –

An elite paratrooper, Mr Pavel, 61, gained fame for liberating French troops besieged by Serbs during the war in Bosnia in 1993.

After the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999, Mr. Pavel spent three years in the Alliance’s regional command in the Netherlands, before becoming Chief of Staff of the Czech Army, then head of the NATO military command.

Ms Nerudova, the youngest of the favorites at 44, is a former academic. An economist, she emphasizes social issues and relies heavily on the support of young voters.

Polls indicate that both Mr Pavel and Ms Nerudova would beat Mr Babis if they face him in the second round.

The other five candidates — two senators, a far-right lawmaker, a former college president and an entrepreneur — are trailing in the polls.

The role of the Czech president is essentially ceremonial, but the head of state appoints the government, chooses the governor of the central bank as well as the judges of the Constitutional Court and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Incumbent President Zeman, a controversial politician and heavy drinker who once admitted to drinking six glasses of wine and three of hard liquor daily, has had a greater influence on Czech political life than his predecessors.

Polling stations open for the first round at 2 p.m. Friday (1 p.m. GMT) and close at 10 p.m., then reopen at 8 a.m. Saturday until 2 p.m. The results are expected on Saturday evening.