For almost ten years the Prague Castle, the seat of Czech presidents, was one of the most pro-Russian and pro-Chinese places in the European Union. Until February 24, President Miloš Zeman systematically defended Russia and promoted its interests, even against his own country – for example, he supported the Russian narrative that the nerve agent Novichok was produced in the Czech Republic, or questioned the police version of the investigation into the Russian attack on the ammunition depots in Vrbětice.
Miloš Zeman will leave office on March 8. It is too early to say who will succeed him, but we can already certainly say that the style and content of the presidency will change fundamentally.
The chances that a pro-Russian candidate becomes president again are extremely low. Of course, there are personalities (communist Josef Skála or MEP Hynek Blaško) who either openly support Russia or at least find sympathy for it and who wish to become head of state, but, with one exception, they are unlikely to take part in the election itself. They will hardly get the necessary number of signatures of citizens (50,000) or members of Parliament (20 deputies or 10 senators).
The exception is Jaroslav Bašta, a former dissident, then minister, ambassador to Russia and Ukraine, and now MP, who is being fielded by the pro-Russian populist SPD movement. It has the necessary 20 members in the Chamber of Deputies. Bašta does not openly support Russia, but he expresses positions that would ultimately benefit Russia. For example, in early March he called for the Czech Republic not to send weapons to Ukraine and wanted to pressure "both sides" to cease fire. Moreover, his SPD has long expressed pro-Russian positions. Chairman Tomio Okamura, for example, is now boasting about how his movement is taking down Ukrainian flags from town halls.
Current polls, however, show that so far Bašta's support is minimal (on 18 October, according to Ipsos agency, he had a core vote of 0.7 percent, with a potential of 3.4 percent) and he has no chance of advancing to the second round.
The top contenders are all staunchly pro-Western
The front runner for the presidential election is Petr Pavel, an army general and former chairman of the NATO military committee. He expresses clear pro-Western positions. He also supports supplying arms to Ukraine. "Ukraine is a sovereign country with a democratically elected government. Cutting off arms supplies would mean that its army would suffer greater losses and Ukraine as an independent country would eventually cease to exist. This is certainly not our interest and it is a risk for the future. That is why we must support Ukraine to defend its independence," Pavel warned on his website.
Petr Pavel’s great advantage is that, although he is himself staunchly pro-Western, he can attract voters from different political parties. Pavel tries to help this broad appeal, expressing himself in a moderate way and betting on his military image in the campaign - he is presented principally as "General Pavel", his slogan being "Bring order and peace (calmness) back to the Czech Republic". Moreover, the campaign is taking place during a time of war, which plays to Pavel's strengths as an experienced soldier.
Pavel's most serious problem in the campaign so far is his past – he was a member of the pre-revolutionary Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and was preparing for a career in communist military intelligence. But what may be a problem for some voters may be alluring to some older people, many of whom also had to make compromises with the communist regime too. The latest available elections simulation gives Pavel nearly 28 percent of the first-round vote.
The next clearly pro-Western candidate is economist Danuše Nerudová, former rector of Mendel University in Brno. "The current Putin's Russia, which is murdering innocent people in Ukraine and waging barbaric aggression against a free and sovereign state, is the biggest security risk for the Czech Republic. This is a country which, moreover, recently included our country among its greatest enemies and committed an act of state terrorism on our territory, in Vrbětice, which led to the deaths of Czech citizens. I unequivocally stand behind Ukraine. They are also fighting for our freedom and security," she writes on her website about the war in Ukraine.
Nerudová is still one of the lesser-known candidates (68 percent of potential voters know her), but her support is growing and in recent polls she has ranked second or third behind Petr Pavel with as much as 17 percent. Nerudová is the youngest of the candidates who have a chance of being elected (she is 43 years old) and the only woman. She is often compared to Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová.
Senator Pavel Fischer, who already ran for president in 2018 and finished on the third place, is also clearly pro-Western. He was subsequently elected to the Senate, where he chairs the foreign affairs and security committee and speaks out against totalitarian regimes, most often Russia and China. Then, in the summer, he visited Ukraine as a senator. Fischer is a conservative candidate and has recently caused controversy with his comments on same-sex marriage. "If we were to admit that we would equate marriage and same-sex unions, we would reinforce the fear that children will be marketed and trafficked," he said in an interview with the Deník N. About 7.5 percent of people would vote for him now.
Also Marek Hilšer ran in the previous presidential election and was elected to the upper chamber of Parliament. He is also clearly pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian. Even before entering politics, he participated in several events as an activist – in 2014 he stripped off his T-shirt at a government press conference to protest the lack of tough action against Russia. Now, he has the support of up to seven percent of voters.
Babiš’s surprise
This overview does not yet say anything about how the elections will turn out. Firstly, they are taking place in a quarter of a year, and a lot can change between now and then. Secondly, the real winner will be decided in the second round, where even a candidate who had a weaker result in the first round may succeed. Above all, we still do not know one key aspect – whether the former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition ANO movement, Andrej Babiš, will take part in the elections. This could have a major impact on the outcome, as Babiš still has a strong core of voters and could get up to 30 percent in the first round, which would tie him with Petr Pavel. If Babiš does not run, his movement will probably send another candidate to the election, but his chances will be significantly lower. The former prime minister will make a last-minute comment regarding his candidacy on 31 October. However, two significant factors are playing against Babiš. Firstly, he is now on trial in a subsidy fraud case, the public session will continue during the campaign and the verdict could be announced at the time of the first round. Second, Babiš has many supporters, but even more opponents, which means that even if he wins the first round, he is likely to succumb to almost any of the opposing candidates in the second.
Babiš and his two most frequently mentioned "backups", Karel Havlíček and Alena Schillerová, have no firm political views and their policies are populist. The ANO movement started out as a right-wing party, later sought voters on the left, and before last year's elections bet on anti-immigration rhetoric. Babiš, a former member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, is similarly shapeless when it comes to Ukraine. After the outbreak of war, he condemned the invasion, but soon began to criticize the government's approach to Ukrainian refugees and, above all, the supply of weapons to a defending Ukraine. The situation is similar with the pro-Western orientation of the Czech Republic – Babiš has never questioned it, but at the same time he repeatedly attacks the EU. His main partner in Europe is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Schillerová and Havlíček are completely loyal to Babiš, and it is to be expected that if they were elected (which is very unlikely), their policies would continue to be guided by Babiš's interests.
The Czech Republic seems ready for a change at the top
It is certain that the Czech Republic is in for a change. We can assume that the new president will again be more visible in domestic politics (Zeman has been very inactive in recent months and years), and that the president will again have the opportunity to become an important player in international relations (Zeman is hardly met by Western leaders, and his attempts to deepen relations with Russia and China have ended in complete failure).
The next president will have the opportunity to build the trust of society. It is likely that the Czech Republic will get a pro-Western president. But we can already say with certainty that any candidate with a realistic chance of being elected will be less pro-Russian and pro-Chinese than Zeman.
