Court obtains 40 complaints against presidential election

Brno, Feb 5 (CTK) - The Czech Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) received 40 complaints against the recent first direct presidential election from which former socialist PM Milos Zeman emerged victorious, NSS judge Vojtech Simicek told CTK Tuesday when the deadline for lodging complaints expired.

The NSS's seven-member election panel of judges, headed by Simicek, has 15 days to decide on the complaints.

Simicek said some of the submitted complaints fail to meet the required formal criteria, while in others the authors' claims are unclear.

"Now we'll select which [of the 40 complaints] are really seriously meant proposals," Simicek said.

Earlier Tuesday, the Pink Panther anti-corruption watchdog turned to the NSS with the demand that the presidential election be repeated.

As a reason in support of its claim, the Pink Panther says Zeman, during his election campaign, distanced himself from his aide Miroslav Slouf, but later it turned out that he had not completely interrupted his contacts with this controversial lobbyist.

The Pink Panther also said it minds some attacks the unsuccessful candidate Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) faced in the election campaign, such as his opponents' allegation that he is not an ethnic Czech, that he wants confiscated property to be returned to Sudeten Germans and that his ancestors and relatives adhere to Nazism.

"These allegations are not true and they could have influenced the election result," the Pink Panther writes.

In addition, Zeman asserted that his candidacy was being supported by certain personalities who, nevertheless, had never expressed support for him, it adds.

Another complaint was lodged by activist and blogger Tomas Pecina who wants the election to be scrapped. He criticises the way the Interior Ministry eliminated two candidates, Tomio Okamura and Vladimir Dlouhy, from the race, challenges the law on the implementation of the direct presidential election and says judge Simicek is biased.

A complaint has also been lodged with the NSS by Vera Caslavska, a Czech Olympic gold winner who openly supported Zeman's rival, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09), before the presidential run-off in late January.

She said the outcome of the run-off vote was influenced by the nationalist argumentation [on the part of Zeman] fomenting fears of property claims to be raised by Sudeten Germans.

The way the campaign was conducted violated the law on the presidential election. The recognition of the election result would amount to legitimising dishonest and fraudulent methods as acceptable and tolerable instruments used to achieve political goals, Caslavska points out.

Caslavska said she posted her complaint only Tuesday, and it is not sure whether the NSS will reject it as lodged belatedly.

The NSS must decide on all complaints by February 20 at the latest. Afterwards the dissatisfied complainants may still turn to the Constitutional Court.

President-elect Zeman will be sworn-in as president and take up the office on March 8.