Prague, Jan 14 (CTK) – Jiri Drahos, Sciences Academy former head who advanced to the Czech presidential runoff, may replace Milos Zeman as president if he wins at least half of the votes that were received in the first round by the four unsuccessful candidates who supported him on Saturday, according to CTK.
Zeman won 38.6 percent of the vote and Drahos 26.6 percent in the first round of the election. The runoff will be held on January 26-27.
After their failure to advance from the first round became apparent on Saturday afternoon, diplomat Pavel Fischer (10.2 percent in first round), entrepreneur and lyricist Michal Horacek (9.2 percent), physicist and university teacher Marek Hilser (8.8 percent) and former prime minister Mirek Topolanek (5.3 percent) expressed their support for Drahos before the runoff.
The turnout in the runoff will play a crucial role.
In the first round, Zeman received two million votes and Drahos 1.4 million votes. Fischer, Horacek, Hilser and Topolanek received 1,7 million votes together.
The turnout was 61.9 percent.
In the previous direct presidential election in 2013, Zeman won the first round, receiving 40,000 votes more than the runner-up, then foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09). In the runoff five years ago, Zeman gained about half a million votes more than Schwarzenberg. Zeman was then indirectly supported by former caretaker cabinet head Jan Fischer, Social Democrat (CSSD) politician Jiri Dienstbier and artist and professor Vladimir Franz who ended in the third, fourth and fifth places in the first round.
