Okamura officially announces his plan to run for president

Prague, Oct 25 (CTK) - Freshly elected senator Tomio Okamura (unaffiliated) Thursday officially announced that he wants to run for Czech president in the direct election that will be held in January 2013.

Okamura, a 40-year-old tourism businessman, said his supporters have already gathered signatures of approximately 25,000 people supporting his candidacy, or half of the required number.

Japanese TV crews were present at the press conference as Okamura was born in Tokyo and his father is Japanese.

Okamura said some time ago he would decide on whether to run for president after the Senate elections. He was among one of the candidates who clearly beat their opponent in the second round of the elections last weekend, defeating regional governor Stanislav Misak (Social Democrats, CSSD) in Zlin, south Moravia.

Opinion polls show that though Okamura is not one of the favourites of the presidential election, he is rather popular in the country. Some observers labelled him a populist.

Okamura told journalists Thursday that he wants to become president in order to be able to push through his programme that he presented in his Czech book on the art of governing, titled Umeni vladnout and issued in 2011.

He said earlier he knows he has very little time to collect the necessary 50,000 signatures that a presidential candidate needs. The deadline is November 6.

Okamura said he would like to invest 15 million crowns in his presidential campaign. He said he is prepared to pay more than one million crowns of his own money and that he is seeking sponsors.