The government coalition of ANO, Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), and the Motorists should nominate a joint candidate in the 2028 presidential election, said Prime Minister and ANO leader Andrej Babis, adding that he believes that discussions about a possible nominee should begin a year earlier.
Tomio Okamura, SPD leader and parliamentary speaker, supported the idea.
The current head of state, Petr Pavel, said on Friday that he would defend his presidential mandate if he felt sufficient public support and his health did not betray him.
According to Babis, a serious debate about potential candidates should begin at the start of 2027. “I consider it important for the governing coalition to be able to offer a joint candidate. A candidate who will not represent just one part of society, but rather an authority who can unite people,” said Babis at the ANO conference on Saturday, where he was re-elected unopposed as party leader with 94% of the vote.
“We have been talking for years about a joint presidential candidate who would unite the voices of common sense and be the president of Czech citizens, not the Brussels commission. If we could unite and find a person who would be electable and acceptable to our voters, we would have a great chance of winning,” Okamura wrote to CTK.
Babis said that the coalition nominee would not necessarily have to be a politician. “The Czech Republic has a number of prominent figures from various fields, including law, science, culture, and public service, who command natural respect and trust,” he said, adding that the topic was not currently on the table.
Pavel was elected president in direct elections in January 2023, defeating Babis in the second round. Pavel has been serving his five-year term since his inauguration in March 2023. According to the constitution, no-one can be elected more than twice in a row. Pavel spoke more clearly about his possible candidacy last week during a visit to Prostejov in the Olomouc region.
An October survey by STEM/MARK found that 58% of people would vote or might vote for Pavel. When offered 40 names of public figures, 40% would choose Babis. According to the survey, the ideal future president should be politically experienced, assertive, pro-Western, and non-partisan.
According to Jan Kubacek and Ales Michal from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, Babis’s proposal is not surprising, as the coalition wants to maximise its chances in the 2028 presidential election, and nominating separate candidates would fragment their forces and weaken their position.
According to Kubacek, in order for a coalition nominee to have a chance, they would have to be close to the “protest world”, which is critical of Pavel. He said the success of such a candidate would also depend on any mistakes made by Pavel, who is currently in a very strong position as a popular incumbent with high public recognition, “who has shown that he has already settled into office.”
Michal said he expected the coalition’s potential candidate to be less directly associated with party politics and the current government’s agenda. However, he expects Babis to have the strongest voice in the selection. “Since the election campaign, SPD and Motorists have shown that they have accepted the leading role of Andrej Babis and the ANO movement in this power bloc,” he said.
