After a costly and acrimonious election campaign, Karel Schwarzenberg and Miloš Zeman will face off in the first-ever directions elections of a Czech president on Jan. 25. Zeman, a former social democratic prime minister and the front-runner going into the first round of the elections, grabbed slightly more than 24 percent of the vote. But he was closely followed by current foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who took 23.4 percent.
Schwarzenberg surpassed Jan Fischer, another former prime minister, who was widely expected to take the second spot in the runoff election. But Fischer performed poorly in a series of debate appearances, giving Schwarzenberg the edge he needed to pull ahead. Ironically, Schwarzenberg, who, at 75, was the oldest candidate on the ballot, ran the most modern campaigns, according to Czech TV media experts, reaching out to voters using Facebook and Twitter.
Fischer finished third, followed by Social Democrat Jiří Dienstbier and composer Vladimír Franz, who made international headlines because 90 percent of his body is covered in tattoos.
