Macinka: The government shouldn't put forward its own presidential candidate

Motorists party leader and Czech Deputy Prime Minister Petr Macinka has said the ruling coalition should not field its own candidate in the presidential election due to take place in early 2028.

"No, that would be ridiculous," Macinka said when asked whether the Motorists were planning to put forward a candidate of their own. According to him, it would be conceptually wrong for the government to promote its own presidential candidate.

SPD leader and Chamber of Deputies Speaker Tomio Okamura takes a different view. He hasn't ruled out the idea of a single coalition candidate. "Once the Senate and municipal elections are over, we will certainly open up this discussion," he said on Wednesday. Okamura had also argued that the ruling coalition's parties should field joint candidates in the current Senate elections, believing this would boost their chances of success — though in the end each party is running its own candidates.

At Monday's press conference, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) was asked whether the coalition had any idea about a future candidate and replied simply: "We don't have any candidate." Pressed further on whether ANO or the government would put forward its own candidate, he said: "That's simply not a topic for us."

Macinka noted that the idea of a government-backed presidential candidate made sense in the past, but once the country moved from indirect to direct elections, that possibility disappeared for good. According to him, starting with Miloš Zeman — the first president elected by direct vote — Czechia will always have only a "civic," not a "political," president.

"I think this is a fundamental and very negative shift, because it divides society in an extremely unhealthy way. It should never have happened, but that's the reality now," the deputy prime minister stressed.

When reminded that in the last presidential election Petr Pavel's rival was the current prime minister, Andrej Babiš — in other words, a political nominee — Macinka replied: "That's precisely why Petr Pavel became president, because part of society didn't want Andrej Babiš." According to him, voters back then weren't so much voting for Pavel as against Babiš: "People didn't choose Pavel. They didn't know who he was, didn't know his views — they just saw the grey hair and the deep voice, and that was it. They were voting against Andrej Babiš."

The future president, in Macinka's view, should be someone capable of uniting feuding politicians at moments when the government and opposition simply cannot agree. "If society could put forward a figure with a natural and convincing willingness to talk to everyone, then Petr Pavel wouldn't stand a chance," he concluded.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz