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The far-right Freedom and Democracy Party expressed indirect support to president Miloš Zeman, who is running for re-election in January. According to a resolution passed at the party congress on Saturday, the future president should support direct democracy, fight for national interests and against migration and islamization.

President Miloš Zeman, who delivered an opening speech at the party congress on Saturday, said he agreed with the party on most issues, with the exception of Czech exit from the EU. He also criticized them for not supporting Czech foreign military missions.

A number of Czech politicians, including former human rights minister Jiří Dientsbier and TOP09 leader Jiří Pospíšil have slammed president Miloš Zeman for appearing at the congress of the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party.

Dr. Sean Hanley is an expert on democracy and parties in the Czech Republic and is the author of The New Right in the New Europe: Czech transformation and right-wing politics. When we sat down last week at his office at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, the conversation took in the demise of the Czech right since the book’s publication in 2007, the rise and rise of ANO and the immediate prospects for prime minister designate Andrej Babiš. But I first asked the political scientist what had led him to his

The president of the Czech Republic should coordinate his foreign trips with the government, according to the eight presidential candidates who are challenging incumbent head of state Miloš Zeman for the country’s top post.

In a poll conducted by the ctk news agency all of them said they would fully respect this. Many are openly critical of the fact that Miloš Zeman’ s activities and statements are not always in line with the government’s foreign policy, sending mixed signals abroad.

Under the Constitution of the Czech Republic, is it the government which moulds the country’s foreign policy, not the head of state.

The Interior Ministry has officially confirmed there will be nine candidates in the presidential election in January, and rejected and additional 11 would-be entries who failed to gather the requisite signatures. Successful applicants were required to collect either 50,000 signatures from the public, 20 from MPs in the lower house or 10 from senators.

Miloš Zeman is the incumbent seeking a second and final five-year term; polls put the former head of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Jiří Drahoš, and lyricist and former betting agency owner Michal Horáček, as his most serious rivals in the race so far. Also running for president is former prime minister Mirek Topolánek, the former Czech ambassador to Paris Pavel Fischer, doctor and activist Marek Hilšer, the former head of Škoda Auto Vratislav Kulhánek, the head of the Defense and Security Association Jiří Hynek, and musician and politician Petr Hannig.

Josef Toman, disqualified from the presidential race for providing too few signatures (from a minimum 50,000 needed) by the November 7 deadline, says he will take legal action over the matter. The candidate said he had gathered almost 75,000 signatures which he had sent to the Interior Ministry by mail.

On the day he filed, the candidate had just 11 signatures from members of the public; the Interior Ministry said it had not received more. Of the 20 people who filed to run, only nine candidates’ registrations were accepted.

The incumbent Miloš Zeman would receive 41.5 percent of the vote in a presidential election if it were held now, suggests an opinion poll conducted for Czech Television by the TNS Kantar and Median agencies. Scientist Jiří Drahoš would come second in a vote for head of state at the present time with 30.5 percent, followed by businessman and lyricist Michal Horáček on 16.5 percent and former prime minister Mirek Topolánek on 4 percent, the survey indicates.

The poll suggests Mr. Zeman would come first among supporters of ANO, Freedom and Direct Democracy and the Communists. Mr. Drahoš is favoured by voters of TOP 09, the Mayors and Independents, the Civic Democrats and – by a slim margin – Mr. Zeman’s former Social Democrats.

Billboards advertising a new book of interviews with President Miloš Zeman have appeared throughout the country in recent days in a campaign that experts say is unusual for a book, iDnes.cz reported. Journalist Pavel Mandys, who writes about literature, said publishers normally could not afford such advertising, while Lukáš Růžička of publishing house Paseka said firms in the business would only use billboards if they thought they could sell books with a large print run.

The president’s book We’ll Manage to Govern Ourselves has come out in an initial print run of 7,500 and a representative of publishers Olympia refused to divulge what the billboard campaign had cost the company.

Mr. Zeman is standing for a second term in a presidential election in January.

President Miloš Zeman has described speculation about his state of health as a campaign against him in the run-up to a presidential election in January. In an interview published on the news site iDnes.cz, the head of state said his only health problem was neuropathy that made it difficult for him to walk.

Mr. Zeman said he had used a wheelchair once and this had caused a storm but he did not expect to need one regularly for 10 or more years. He said he would not publish a complete medical report on his health as he had done so before in the form of statements from his doctors.

The Office of the President is suing a local politician in Brno who said Mr. Zeman was suffering from cancer and had only months to live.

Only nine people will stand for the post of Czech president in elections in January after 11 would-be candidates were found to have deficiencies in their applications, Czech Television reported on Wednesday. The eleven have been given eight days to rectify the shortcomings. However, they have effectively been disqualified as the Ministry of the Interior said there was insufficient time for them to do so.

Among those in the running are the incumbent Miloš Zeman, former prime minister Mirek Topolánek and academic Jiří Drahoš.

Former prime minister Mirek Topolánek failed to register a campaign account by Tuesday in line with filing his bid to run in the upcoming presidential election, Czech Radio reported Friday, adding the account created later was non-transparent.

Mr Topolánek unexpectedly announced his decision to run for president last Sunday and secured signatures from 10 senators on the eve of the deadline.

His team countered that the law did not properly account for last-minute candidacies. The Interior Ministry is looking into the matter; there are several possibilities, from symbolic sanctions to a fine of up to half a million crowns.