After Babiš was initially in the lead, following the counting of around 99 percent of the polling stations, Pavel finally led with 35.21 percent, just ahead of Babiš with 35.17 percent.
In the presidential elections in the Czech Republic, there will be a runoff between former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and former Chief of Staff Petr Pavel in two weeks. In the first round of voting, which ended on Saturday, the two fought a close race. After Babiš was initially in the lead, following the counting of around 99 percent of the polling stations, Pavel finally led with 35.21 percent, just ahead of Babiš with 35.17 percent.
Time played for the earlier ones Nato-General, as polling stations in the country’s larger cities, which tend to be more skeptical of populist ex-prime minister and billionaire businessman Babiš, were counted last.
The third favorite of the voting, Danuše Nerudová, ended up surprisingly far behind in third place. The economist only got just under 14 percent of the votes. As expected, the other five candidates remained below the ten percent mark. There was a turnout of around 67 percent.
Pavel is looking forward to the runoff
Pavel said in a first comment that he was looking forward to running once morest Babiš in the runoff. “It will be a big challenge and I like challenges,” said the former NATO general. The question now is whether voters would believe the former prime minister’s “empty promises” or whether they would want a change.
Pavel warned that electing the billionaire businessman as president posed a danger of populism and a “democracy turning away from the pro-Western and European course”. The Czech Republic would end up somewhere on the border between West and East, “which would harm us a lot,” said Pavel. According to earlier polls, the 61-year-old is said to have a better chance of winning the runoff than Babiš.
The head of the populist party AGAIN and billionaire Babiš served as head of government in the neighboring country from 2017 to 2021. The controversial businessman narrowly lost last year’s parliamentary elections to the centre-right coalition that now governs.
The runoff election will take place on January 27th and 28th. The term of office of the incumbent President Miloš Zeman ends at the beginning of March.
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