Elections in the Czech Republic 2023

David Horník V.B.

Czech presidential elections in a nutshell: 3 favourites, 2 places in the second round, 1 winner

After ten years with Miloš Zeman as the head of our country, the Czech Republic is expecting the arrival of a new president. For the last few months, the campaign has intensified, and three candidates have come out as the favourites. I will try to analyze which of them has the best odds of becoming the fourth president of the Czech Republic.

Firstly, Andrej Babiš. I think I don´t need to introduce him. Although he was several times investigated for conflict of interests, he was never convicted, and he still has a support of roughly a quarter of voters. His chances of advancing to the second round are pretty high because he has a stable group of loyal voters. The only candidate who could steal some votes might be Jaroslav Bašta, but all of the others are from different sides of the political spectrum. His chances of winning the second round are quite low because most of the people who vote for the other candidates will probably support...

Petr Pavel is a general in retirement. Many ministers from the current government officially said that they will vote for him. To my mind, he looked the best in the pre-election debates on TV. If he reaches the second round, he is the most probable candidate to win. Most people said that if Babiš faced Pavel in the second round, they would vote for the general. But there could be one problem for Pavel. And its name is...

Danuše Nerudová, former rector of the Mendel University in Brno. She gains a lot of votes in a similar group of voters as general Pavel, so there is a chance that she would steal some people from him. But in my opinion, it is not likely, and she will be the one to be eliminated. The thing supporting this opinion was the debate on TV Prima on Wednesday, 11th January. She couldn´t clearly answer the questions about her biggest controversy - the selling of degrees at Mendel University. She said she wasn´t responsible for it, and Pavel answered that in the president´s office, she can´t just leave the responsibility to others. When the audience voted on who was better in the debate, about 75 % of people voted for general Pavel. It is going to be very hard for Nerudová to reach the second round.

Another problem for her advancing to the second could be Pavel Fišer. According to the experts, pre-election surveys, and the betting offices, he has no real chance of becoming the president. But, he can marginally take down the gains of Nerudová. He really surprised me in the public TV debate, where he was the most convincing of the eight candidates. Unfortunately, he wasn´t invited to some of the most viewed debates because of his small gain in the official surveys, which is a fact that decreased his chances.

The numbers are clear. The biggest favourite is Petr Pavel. If he advances to the second round, there´s no doubt about his victory for me. But the journey won´t be easy. I would say there´s a big chance that we´ll see at least one surprise. Why?

Once, I will use the surveys as a relevant source. According to them, 25 % of people aren´t decided yet. What does it mean? Anything could happen. They might make Petr Pavel win in the first round, or they might vote for Pavel Fišer, who was doing very well in the last days before the first round of the election. Or they may submit to the populism of Andrej Babiš. Maybe, Karel Diviš, who picked really aggressive tactics, appealed to them more. My guess is that there are several options for who will capture Prague Castle. But it won´t be ANOs´ chairman and founder, Andrej Babiš. It is not only a guess but also the deepest wish.