Petr Pavel won the first round of the Czech presidential election and will face Andrej Babiš in the run off next weekend. (source: AP/TASR)
So many elections in the central-European region are accompanied by warnings that they are really about the character of the state and the survival of democracy, that we have gotten used to a permanent state of tension. The duel among two Czech presidential candidates is not such a drama, as analyst Dalibor Roháč pointed out. Refreshing.
Other political observers offer the motive that Czech presidential candidates Petr Pavel and Andrej Babiš represent two different ways of coming to terms with the communist past. This is also fundamental and relevant for Slovaks, which is why we are watching closely.
