PRAGUE: Polling stations in the Czech Republic closed Saturday after the final round of a presidential election in which retired NATO general Petr Pavel is most probably to beat the former prime minister Andrej Babis, one of the country’s wealthiest men.
The results are expected to be announced around 1500 GMT on Saturday.
Experts predicted a high turnout for the two-day vote, after a hostile campaign marked by controversy and even death threats and a brazen hoax.
Czech presidential opinion poll
Petr Pavel, a former paratrooper, topped the latest opinion polls with 58 to 59 percent support, against 41 to 42 percent support for Babis.
Commenting on the results, Tomas Lebeda, a political scientist at Palacky University said that if the polls were well conducted, he thought it hard for Babis to come back.
The winner of the contest will replace Milos Zeman, an outspoken and divisive politician who fostered close relations with Moscow before making a U-turn when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
While casting his vote on Friday, Pavel said he needed to be a dignified president of the European Union and NATO member with 10.5 million people in his country.
“I won’t offer you a pie in the sky, but instead I will describe reality as it is,” Pavel said.
Taking to his Twitter handle on Saturday, Pavel advised voters to leap in and vote, posting an archive picture of himself doing bungee jumping.
Babis, whose legal headaches and wealth have made him a troublesome figure, called the election a referendum on Babis.
Meanwhile, Petr Pavel edged ahead of Babis at 35.4 percent to 35 percent in the first round of voting two weeks before, wooing voters with his no-nonsense rhetoric.
Havoc amid the Campaign
Since the end of the first round of voting, Babis and his family have been targeted by death threats, whereas Petr Pavel became a victim of a hoax claiming he was dead.
The wealthy Babis are supported by the outgoing president Zeman and both leaders have used anti-migrant rhetoric in past.
As the role is largely ceremonial, the Czech president names the government picks the central bank governor and constitutional judges and serves as commander of the armed forces.
Pavel, 61, was decorated as a hero in the Serbo-Croatian war when he assisted free French troops from a war zone.
Later he rose to chief of the Czech general staff and chair of NATO’s military committee.
Like Babis, Petr Pavel was an active member of the Communist Party in the 1980s, at the time when Czechoslovakia was ruled by Moscow-backed communists.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes magazine, the 68-year-old Babis went on to become the fifth richest person in the Czech Republic, as the owner of the Agrofert food, chemicals, and media group.
As a billionaire, he also served as the prime minister of the country from 2017-2021, stirring controversy at the end of his campaign when he said he would not send troops to fellow NATO members Poland and the Baltics if they were attacked.
Babis later backtracked but then received a lot of criticism from all four countries.
Jan Kubacek an independent political analyst said the presidential election was unlikely to have any significant change in the foreign policy shifts, no matter who would be the winner.
