The winner of the first round of the presidential election, General Petr Pavel, is expecting “allegations” and “lies” from his opponent, former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, before the second round.
Babiš congratulated Pavel on his victory, but immediately went on the attack against his opponent.
“I don’t understand why he’s running,” he said, stressing Pavel’s past as a soldier and a Communist Party member.
Babiš referred to him as a “communist intelligence agent”, which Pavel described as “whining”, adding that Babiš is “losing his head”.
“I congratulate him for making it all the way to the NATO military committee as a communist intelligence officer – trained in Russia – who welcomed the invasion of Russian troops. Hats off to him,” said Babiš, who was also a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and is on trial for registering as an StB agent.
Among other assertions, Babiš said that currently, the only president in Europe who had been a “Communist agent” was Russia’s Putin.
Pavel subsequently told the Czech Press Agency that if Babiš’s campaign before the second round looks like his press conference, then “a lot of lies can be expected”.
“I didn’t manage to watch the press conference of Babiš, but I heard that it was one big yawn,” he wrote.
Pavel is a former chairman of Nato’s military committee, the alliance’s highest military body.
He fully endorsed the country’s military and humanitarian support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia and sees the Czech Republic’s future linked to membership in the European Union and Nato.
Fiala, Fischer, Nerudová endorse Pavel for second round
