Pavel Havlicek: Gen Petr Pavel would have less bumpy implications for the future of the country
26.01.2023
Pavel Havlicek
This weekend the runoff election of the President of the Czech Republic will take place. In your opinion, how can the election of each of either Petr Pavel or Andrey Babiš affect the future of the Czech Republic? Newssky has asked Pavel Havlicek, who is a Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs Research Centre in Prague to comment.
As for the implications for the future of the Czech Republic, I am convinced that election of the general Petr Pavel would have less bumpy implications for the future of the country since he is both on more friendly terms with the government of Petr Fiala and is very much opposed to the heritage of Miloš Zeman standing strongly in the Euro-Atlantic orientation as well as in favour of liberal democracy.
Speaking about Andrej Babiš, the former PM and leader of his ANO movement, who stands in the opposition to the government and is much more flexible on the liberal democratic order, which he has been trying to undermine and weaken in the past. Apparently, he would also be in favor of the EU and NATO, but likely without much enthusiasm.
Over the last couple of days, he also caused an international scandal when refusing to potentially send the Czech soldiers to help Poland or the Baltic States in case they would be attacked by Russia. Similarly, he tried to abuse the fear from the war and proposed a peace plan for Ukraine, deliberately not commenting on the Russian position and aggression that Vladimir Putin initiated in the first place. Hence, his chaotic leadership and erratic behavior could be riskier and would not go very well with the current foreign and security policy position of the Czech government.
Maryna Kovalchuk, the Newssky’s own correspondent (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland), V5 Media project leader, contributed
