NATO general becomes new president of the Czech Republic
Reserve army general and former head of the NATO Military Committee Petr Pavel won 58,32% of the votes in the second round of the presidential elections in the Czech Republic. His opponent, ex-Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babis, who received 41,72% of the votes, has already admitted defeat, reports the ČTK agency.
The winner will replace Milos Zeman at Prague Castle (the residence of the President of the Czech Republic). For a long time he was considered one of the most pro-Russian heads of EU countries, but after February 24, 2022, Zeman sharply toughened his position towards Moscow, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala has already congratulated Petr Pavel on his victory, as well as the heads of some states neighboring the Czech Republic - in particular, Slovakia and Austria. The new President of the Czech Republic will take office at the beginning of March 2023.
61-year-old Pyotr Pavel is the son of an officer and a career military man. He served in military intelligence, in the UN peacekeeping mission in Yugoslavia, and in the Czech Ministry of Defense. 68-year-old Andrej Babis is a businessman, dollar billionaire, former finance minister and prime minister of the Czech Republic.
Pavel adheres to the firm pro-Western course of the Czech Republic, in particular, he advocates strong support for Kyiv. Babis, who advocates an early end to the conflict in Ukraine, criticized the Czech government for putting Ukrainian interests above Czech ones.
In the Czech Republic, the president has mainly ceremonial functions, but he is the one who appoints the country's prime minister and members of the board of the Central Bank, and also nominates judges to the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic.
Как reported "PolitNavigator", the former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, billionaire Andrej Babis and the former head of the NATO military committee, General Petr Pavel, having gained an almost equal number of votes in the first round of the presidential election, advanced to the second round.
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