Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has been voted out of office, but President Miloš Zeman is still in office. From the point of view of the critics of the previous Babiš government, the political change will only be complete when Zeman is gone. The presidential election is scheduled for the beginning of 2023. Zeman will then not be allowed to run again after two terms in office. Now there is growing criticism of Zeman, who is very seriously ill – but is determined to hold onto power.
The 77-year-old has been in intensive care in a Prague hospital since Sunday. And with each passing day, fears grow that his condition can significantly delay the transition to a new government. Especially since nobody knows exactly how he is doing, whether he can be approached at all. A week ago a new parliament was elected in the Czech Republic. Prime Minister Babiš’s party was no longer the strongest force, and the united opposition won a clear majority. Before the election, Zeman spoke out in favor of Babiš, describing the electoral alliances in which the opposition parties had stood as “fraud”.
The president must appoint the new government as soon as possible after November 8th. Then the new parliament will meet for the first time and the previous government will submit its resignation – to the president. This must then also appoint the new government. As long as he doesn’t do that, the old one will remain for the time being.
At first there were fears that the incumbent Prime Minister Babiš could take advantage of the situation. In the event of a substitute, Zeman’s functions are transferred to different officials, explains the former Czech ambassador Jiří Schneider on the phone. Part of the power would then also fall to the prime minister and the speaker of parliament – he too belongs to the prime minister’s party.
Babiš himself contributed to the confusion by making contradicting statements. He had visited Zeman on Sunday morning at his residence in Lány Castle. At first he stated that it was a long-held discussion about the outcome of the parliamentary elections, but claimed a few days later that the President had entrusted him with the formation of a government. “I just have to accept the assignment,” he said. On Friday evening he said on the radio that he was ready to join the opposition.
“It no longer has anything to do with decent politics.”
“The whole situation is very bizarre,” writes political scientist Lubomír Kopeček from Masaryk University in Brno. One could even assume that the presidential chancellery “is playing some strange game with the president’s wife” with the aim of extending the influence of the presidential chancellery “and other people close to the president”. “It has nothing to do with decent politics”, summarizes Jiří Schneider.
Ivana Zemanová said on Czech television on Thursday that her husband was undergoing treatment that would take time. All in all, she gave the impression that the President just needed a little rest and would get well again. It has been obvious for years that Zeman is in poor health, he has been to the hospital several times. He cannot walk without help, mostly uses a wheelchair, sometimes he seems absent. His years of alcohol abuse is an open secret. Severe liver damage is suspected.
The distrust of the statements of Zeman or his confidants has a history. Zeman surrounds himself with people who call the Czech secret service BIS on the scene. The head of the presidential chancellery has not received a security confirmation from the Office for National Security to date; he was and is being investigated for influencing the judiciary and taking advantage of it.
Zeman’s closest advisor, on the other hand, used to work for the Russian company Lukoil. The BIS has been warning against espionage from Russia and China for years, and quite a few critics of Zeman see the president himself as one of the greatest security risks for the country.
Demands to declare Zeman unfit for office are growing louder. Comparisons are made to the times of socialism, when the people were kept in ignorance. Only with President Václav Havel did you always know how he was doing. The politician Zdeněk Hraba, a member of the Senate, said on television that if it was not clear by November 15 whether the president would be able to exercise his office, then his representation would have to be regulated. These days it is becoming apparent that “there is a damned lack of dignity in some of the highest levels of politics.”
In any case, the election winners are already negotiating: the five parties want to start writing their coalition agreement as early as next week.