Czech president, who encouraged citizens to buy guns and get ready for an ISIS invasion, wins re-election

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Czech voters re-elected their Russia-friendly president on Saturday, dealing a defeat to a center-left candidate who had pledged to reverse a growing tide of euroskepticism in the region.

Milos Zeman, the 73-year-old incumbent—who argued in his campaign that Czechs needed him to stop a wave of Muslim immigrants—took 51.4% of the vote, with almost all districts counted. The results gave 48.6% to his opponent, Jiri Drahos, a 68-year-old chemistry professor who presented himself as a centrist outsider who could unite a country polarized over Zeman’s presidency.

“If it weren’t for you, we didn’t win,” Zeman told his supporters in his victory speech, sitting crossed legged on a couch. “I would like to tell you, as my friends, one message: This, my dears, is my last political victory.”

His win highlights the solid position of incumbent parties in Central and Eastern Europe that are skeptical of the European Union’s aims to build a closer, more unified Europe.

An EU plan to settle refugees who landed in Italy or Greece to other countries—whose citizens wouldn’t get a vote on the issue—has sparked a furious backlash in the region. That has empowered euroskeptics particularly in Poland and Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has fenced off the country’s entire southern border and is widely favored to win another term this year.




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