Prague, Jan 24 (CTK) – President Milos Zeman made more untrue statements than Jiri Drahos, his rival in the upcoming presidential election runoff, in their duel on the commercial TV Prima on Tuesday, according to an analysis on Demagog.cz, which assessed seven of Zeman’s total 28 statements as untrue.
Drahos, former Science Academy chairman, made 14 statements during the hour-long debate, with two of them being untrue, Demagog.cz server says in a press release sent to CTK.
“In the debate on TV Prima, both candidates touched on a number of issues, some of which, interestingly, are not within their powers as the potential head of state. Neither of the two managed to never divert from true facts during the discussion,” Jan Tvrdon, head of the Demagog.cz project, said.
The server called the debate emotional and unusual.
A total of 42 statements were made in it, most of them (28) being made by Zeman, and the remaining 14 by Drahos.
Zeman showed his knowledge of international negotiations, the EU migrant quotas and the arms possession rights as enjoyed by people in various countries, the server said.
“However, he sank the true information about the government-appointment procedure by making untrue statements about the legislative process,” Demagog.cz said.
Zeman’s seven untrue statements concerned issues such as the passing of the EU’s directive on migration, the president’s powers in lodging constitutional complaints and the signing of international agreements, Demagog.cz said.
Furthermore, Zeman made three misleading statements and two statements which Demagog.cz could not verify.
“Neither of the two candidates said anything true about the results and activities of the counter-intelligence service (BIS),” the server added.
Drahos’s two untrue statements concerned the content of a BIS annual report and his wrong labelling of Zeman, former prime minister, as a politician who promoted the acceptance of refugees from Kosovo in 1999, Demagog.cz said.
Zeman and Drahos emerged as the most successful of the nine candidates from the January 12-13 first round of the presidential election, with 38.6 and 26.6 percent of the vote, respectively.
Out of the seven unsuccessful candidates, most supported Drahos before the runoff due on January 26-27.
Accordinng to fresh public opinion polls, the two candidates’ chances in the runoff are approximately the same.
