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Milos Zeman

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Milos Zeman (born in Kolin, September 28, 1944) is the incumbent and 3rd president of the Czech Republic. He was the first directly elected president of the country when he won the January 2013 presidential election runoff against Karel Schwarzenberg with 54.8% of the vote, assuming office on March 8, 2013.

Expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1970 for disagreement with the Soviet occupation, Zeman has a long history in politics in the post-communist era of the Czech Republic, which began after the Velvet Revolution of the winter of 1989. He joined Civic Forum, a political movement whose purpose was to unify the dissident forces in Czechoslovakia that helped oust the communist government, in 1990 and then in 1992 went on to recreate the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), which can trace its roots back to 1878.

Zeman was Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament, from 1996 to 1998 before becoming the 3rd prime minister of the Czech Republic on July 22, 1998 when CSSD under his leadership formed a minority government after winning the most seats (77 out of 200 in the Chamber of Deputies) in the June 19-20, 1998 parliamentary election. He served one term until 2002 and then announced he was retiring to his cottage in the Vysocina highlands.

Zeman quickly made a comeback by winning a ‘primary’ among CSSD supporters to be the party’s candidate in the 2003 presidential election, which was then an indirect vote held in parliament by lower and upper house deputies. However, not enough CSSD parliamentarians voted for him and he was humiliatingly eliminated from the contest early on, with his long-time conservative rival Vaclav Klaus finally elected as president and then re-elected for a second term in 2008. This is the source of Zeman’s rift, which continues to this day, with the party that he had helped found.

Zeman was a candidate for president of the Czech Republic. The election took place from January 12–13, 2018. Zeman advanced to the runoff election, which was held from January 26–27.

On the trail

Campaign Finance

Zeman accumulated the necessary 50,000 signatures for competing in the presidential election and, as per new rules over the financing of political parties and entities, opened a compulsory transparent bank account for the presidential election, into which a maximum of CZK40mn ($1.8mn) could be garnered with a further CZK10mn possible for the runoff. As of August 13, the account held CZK356,421, with the majority being minuscule donations worth mere hellers (Czech: haler), a tiny fraction of one Czech crown, the coins for which are no longer in circulation. The Czech media surmised the reason for this was that making even such a small donation allowed the donor to accompany it with a message that appears alongside the amount on his bank statements, many of which are unflattering.

Advisers & Staff

Zeman’s closest political aide is Martin Nejedly (born in Kunovice, July 7, 1966), a Czech businessman who was officially elected as “councilor of the president” at the latest congress in February 2017 of the Citizens' Rights Party (SPO) – a left-leaning party created by Zeman (who is honorary chairman) as way to extend his influence in parliament while president. But according to local media, Nejedly’s influence extends well beyond being a mere adviser. “Unofficially his position is the most strategic at the Presidential Office. He has his own office on the same floor as Zeman, politicians and entrepreneurs come to visit him and the talks can be held unnoticed, without the media being present. He has a secretary and two drivers for his dark Mercedes”, newspaper Respekt wrote, adding that because he is not paid by the Presidential Office he needs no security vetting from the National Security Office, though he still handles sensitive information related to foreign policy, security and financial affairs.

Nejedly was formerly managing director of LUKOIL Aviation Czech, one of several notable ties to Russian entities and individuals. These include meeting with President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov this year. Nejedly claimed to Respekt – a rare public pronouncement from a man who avoids the media – this was in a private capacity, though since Nejedly is not part of the foreign affairs section of the Presidential Office, where all visits must be officially recorded, there is no way to verify his statement.

Polls

As of October 2017, there are no polls that include Bostik’s candidacy.

Czech Republic Presidential Election, 2018
Poll Milos Zeman Michal HoracekJiri Drahos
Medea Research
August 18-27, 2017		 42.25%17.12%19.05%
Focus
August 14-28, 2017		 28.1%12.4%13%
AVERAGES 35.18% 14.76% 16.03%
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org.

On the issues

Domestic Policy

In keeping with being a former Social Democrat, Zeman held largely left-of-center views on domestic policy: supporting economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, as well as a policy regime involving a commitment to representative democracy, measures for income redistribution, and regulation of the economy in the general interest and welfare state provisions.

According to his inauguration speech in 2013, Zeman offered to make Prague Castle (the seat of the presidency) “a neutral ground for discussion of all political parties”, as well as other important social organizations such as labor unions, employers’ associations and other institutions.

Nevertheless, during his term Zeman continued to attack CSSD, which led a coalition government with ANO (“YES”) and the Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-CSL), and the party’s leader, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. Instead, he repeatedly sided with the leader of ANO, the billionaire former finance minister Andrej Babis in a series of coalition disputes. He repeatedly vowed to appoint Babis as prime minister if ANO won the October 2017 parliamentary election, despite Babis having had his parliamentary immunity lifted on account of a police investigation into suspected fraudulent use of EU subsidies.

Foreign Policy

Zeman’s foreign policy outlook shifted during his term in office from the traditional CSSD pro-Euro-Atlantic orientation to an increasingly independent one that takes hard lines against Muslim migrants and Western sanctions on Russia, which are closer to the far-right or to the Communists who once ruled the country. He backed Donald Trump’s bid for the White House and called himself the “Czech Donald Trump”. Despite claiming in a January 11, 2017 interview with the Washington Post that he had been personally invited by the US president to the White House, he had yet to visit the US for a summit meeting as of January 2018.

He became notably more pro-Russian in his statements, advocated letting Czechs vote in a referendum on EU and Nato membership, although he said he would be in favor of staying in both. In 2015, Zeman was the only EU head of state to attend Moscow events marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, meeting with President Putin. He dismissed widespread evidence of Russian disinformation and propaganda programs, and provided legitimacy to Czech conspiracy and disinformation outlets by giving them interviews on a regular basis, while criticizing and avoiding mainstream media outlets and journalists who worked for them. He said that “Crimea cannot be given back to Ukraine” and that the events in Donbas were a “civil war” rather than Russian aggression.

Political savvy

Character

Zeman is a cigarette-smoking, hard-drinking politically historical figure in post-communist Czech Republic, known for his ponderous quotes, not very funny bonmot and bruising personality. As president, he cultivated this image of appealing to the ‘every Czech man’ worried about their job, family, immigrants and traditional community and way of life, while disparaging the elites that populate the Prague coffee houses and the media.

There were worries about his deteriorating health from the years of hard drinking and smoking that resulted in him having to use a walking cane and diabetes was diagnosed in 2015. The media speculated that he would not be fit enough to run for a second term, but a health report released by the President’s Office in 2017 revealed that Zeman suffered from polyfunctional neuropathy, a condition that makes walking difficult, while changes to his diet and lifestyle had achieved weight loss and stabilization of long-term sugar levels. “Based on the results, we can state that the president's current state of health is very good,” one of Zeman’s doctors told a press conference.

Personal

In the 1970s, Zeman was married to Blanka Zemanova; the couple divorced in 1978. In 1993, he married his assistant Ivana Bednarcíkova (born April 29, 1965).


Recent news

See also

Footnotes

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