Ostrava, North Moravia, Jan 14 (CTK) – The Civic Democrats (ODS), the strongest Czech right-wing party, supports academic Jiri Drahos in the runoff in which he will for the presidential post with Milos Zeman who is defending it, the ODS congress declared on Sunday.
This declaration was proposed by Petr Fiala who was re-elected ODS leader on Saturday.
Fiala said ODS’s main goal is that Zeman is replaced by somebody else as president. Zeman, 73, is an old man who needs to rest, Fiala said, referring to the speculations about Zeman’s bad health condition.
“We agree that the present performance of the presidential post divides our society,” Fiala said on Saturday, adding that Zeman turned it into a low-quality reality show.
Moreover, Zeman challenged some of the key strategic interests of the Czech Republic, Fiala said.
In the first round of the election that ended on Saturday, Zeman won 12-percentage points ahead of Drahos. However, the four most popular candidates who failed to advance to the runoff joined forces in support of Drahos and against Zeman.
The ODS congress also declared that it would no support any minority government of the ANO movement. The representatives of the party repeatedly criticised ANO leader Babis.
When addressing the congress before his re-election, Fiala said Babis wants to rule the country by himself, although voters did not give his ANO movement a mandate to form a cabinet without coalition partners.
If Babis is not willing to rule with coalition partners or incapable of this, he should pass the post of prime minister to somebody else, Fiala said.
The current political situation, in which a minority cabinet is expected to fail the confidence vote in parliament next week is a result of the failure of Babis and ANO.
The ODS congress on Sunday elected its new executive council, whose members include former ministers Martin Kuba and Alexandr Vondra and former police president Martin Cervicek. This council coordinates communication between the headquarters and regional branches, organises political campaigns and other activities.
The ODS has been the second strongest party in the Chamber of Deputies since the autumn general election, but it has only 25 MPs in the 200-member Chamber, while the victorious ANO has 78 MPs. The Pirates and the right-wing populist SPD movement have 22 MPs each.
