Photo: Zuzana Jarolímková, Czech Radio
Saturday marks Petr Pavel’s first 100 days as president of Czechia. What have been his biggest successes – and his biggest failures? I spoke to political scientist Jiří Pehe about how he would rate how the fledgling president is doing so far.
“I think that President Pavel is doing quite well, especially if we compare his performance with that of his predecessor, Miloš Zeman, who really wasn’t an active president during the last years of his presidency, and who also wasn’t really a very constructive politician, getting into a number of conflicts and clashes with other politicians and so on. Whereas it seems to me that Mr Pavel is trying very hard to find consensus on the Czech political scene, and his performance in foreign policy in particular is very impressive.”
Has he done the things he promised during his election campaign that he would do in his first 100 days?
“If we look at what he promised and what he has actually been doing, he has pretty much managed to stick to his intentions. Especially in foreign policy, he has been very active and he has tried very hard to find some consensus with other top politicians in the Czech Republic – the prime minister and the speakers of both houses of parliament. He has returned the Czech Republic firmly on a pro-Western path, and that is certainly an achievement.
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Author: Anna Fodor