Prague, July 5 (CTK) – Jiri Drahos, former chairman of the Czech Science Academy, appreciates supports by the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and Mayors and Independents (STAN), but he wants to remain an independent presidential candidate, he said in a press release on Wednesday.
He reacted to Tuesday’s statement by the junior government KDU-CSL and opposition STAN chairmen, Pavel Belobradek and Petr Gazdik, respectively, that they will propose to their parties that they should support Drahos’s candidature.
“I thanked both gentlemen for the support. I am glad if anyone appreciates my work I have done, the message with which I am seeking the post, or the moral principles that I espouse, whether it is a democratic party or any citizen of this country,” Drahos wrote.
“However, this does not change anything about that I am not and will not be a candidate of any political party or grouping, I am not negotiating about support with political entities and I am not actively seeking it,” Drahos wrote.
Drahos announced his candidature at the end of March.
The direct presidential election, in which incumbent President Milos Zeman will seek re-election, will be held in January 2018.
In addition to Drahos and Zeman, candidature has also been announced by lyricist and businessman Michal Horacek, physician and activist Marek Hilser, businessman Igor Sladek and Vratislav Kulhanek, former head of the Skoda Auto car maker in Mlada Boleslav, central Bohemia. He will be a candidate of the recently re-established Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA).
