Prague, May 22 (CTK) – Pop lyricist and former businessman Michal Horacek is the richest Czech presidential candidate with 232 million crowns, far before President Milos Zeman and scientist Jiri Drahos, out of the trio standing a real chance of succeeding in the contest, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday.
The paper sent six questions to the candidates, asking about their property: What is your family and property situation? Do you have any debts? What are your savings? Do you own any securities? What cars does your family own? In which firms are you active?
Thanks to their replies, the paper found out that Horacek has over 232 million crowns deposited in five financial institutions as well as securities worth over four million crowns.
As the only one of the trio, Horacek also has some claims. He lent 1,571,000 crowns to a friend of his and 15.3 million crowns to the Czech Cultural Projects association, Horacek said in his property statement.
Horacek owns three cars, a Maybach, a Jaguar and a Mercedes.
Along with his family, he lives in a house in Roudnice nad Labem, north Bohemia, worth 31.7 million crowns, owned by the TRUST FUTURA H fund he administers.
The fund owns proceeds from Horacek’s copyright, roughly 1,100,000 crowns a year. It has Horacek’s collections of paintings, statues, precious books and maps for about 45 million crowns and some 108.7 million crowns Horacek transferred to it when it was established.
He also owns a cottage in south Bohemia, estimated at 11 million crowns.
Horacek is the 100-percent owner of the company Kudykam, member of the board of directors of a foundation that will build a memorial to Czech Literature Nobel Prize laureate Jaroslav Seifert and the association We Can Achieve More, founded in connection with his presidential bid this April.
Zeman’s savings have reached 12 million crowns, his spokesman Jiri Ovcacek has told the paper.
“These are his life-long savings that include the proceeds from his publication activities,” Ovcacek said.
Zeman, 72, also owns two rooms in a former fortified house he bought in 1989, Ovcacek said.
MfD said he had in mind Zeman’s cottage in Nove Veseli, south Moravia, where he regularly spends his holiday.
Zeman and his wife Ivana Zemanova are not in any companies.
“However, Zeman is a member of the board of directors of the President Milos Zeman Foundation and she chairs the Ivana Zemanova Foundation,” Ovcacek said.
The family of Drahos, 68, a former chairman of the Czech Academy of Sciences, owns several properties.
“We have a flat in Prague and a cottage near Kamyk nad Vltavou, central Bohemia,” Drahos told the paper.
Just like Zeman, neither Drahos nor his wife have any debts.
He said their savings amount to roughly two million crowns, MfD writes.
The Drahos family uses a five-year-old Honda CR-V car, it adds.
“The family is not in any companies,” Drahos said, adding that he is only chairman of the Czech Society of Chemical Engineering, MfD writes.
The second direct presidential election is scheduled for early 2018. Zeman won the first, held in early 2013.
($ = 23.710 crowns)
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