Retired general Petr Pavel held a 15 percentage point lead over former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis heading into a presidential run-off vote on Friday and Saturday, a Czech Television poll showed on Saturday.
The two are squaring off in a second-round vote starting on Friday after Pavel narrowly won over billionaire Babis in the first round of the election at the weekend, although neither scored a majority of votes.
The poll showed Pavel leading with 53 percent compared with 38 percent for Babis, with 9 percent undecided.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The expected turnout could hit 84 percent in the poll, the highest ever in a Czech presidential vote, the survey found.
The post does not carry executive authority, but has significant powers in appointing prime ministers, central bank chiefs and nominating judges for the constitutional court.
Presidents also have a limited say in foreign affairs.
Pavel, a former general who held a senior NATO military job, and combative opposition leader Babis, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, would likely be more pro-Western than Czech President Milos Zeman.
Pavel, 61, is strongly pro-Western and supports further military aid for Ukraine as well as adoption of the euro.
Babis, 68, who built a chemicals, farming and media empire now registered in trust funds, shares Zeman’s warm relations with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been at odds with the EU over the rule of law.
Babis has also spoken in the past against Ukraine military aid and has touted ambitions to organize a peace summit while attacking Pavel in the past week for being pro-war.
Pavel, endorsed by the center-right government, has accused Babis of fear mongering.
Some voters have also voiced frustration that both first-round winners were members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia prior to the end of its rule in 1989.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS