Pro-Russian Milos Zeman wins Czech Republic presidential runoff

Deutsche Welle

Czech Republic President Milos Zeman on Saturday won the country's presidential election runoff, official results showed.

The national statistics office CSU said with results from more than 98 percent of voting districts counted, Zeman had 51.64% of the vote versus 48.35% for his opponent, former Academy of Sciences head Jiri Drahos.

Turnout was 66.5% of the country's 8.4 million eligible voters, the CSU reported.

Polls closed at 2 p.m. local time on Saturday following two days of voting, and the first results began to trickle out shortly after.

Zeman confirmed within hours

Less than two hours later, the majority of votes had been counted, and Zeman was awarded a second five-year term in the largely ceremonial role.

The 73-year-old incumbent took an early lead from ballots counted in rural districts. Drahos was expected to win more support amongst more educated voters in urban areas, but failed to capitalize on his pro-European stance.

He quickly conceded defeat in front of his supporters, a few minutes after the result was announced.

Brussels-based EU affairs analyst Vojtech Nemec put Zeman's success down to his support among poorer and rural voters.

Incumbent Czech president Zeman managed to mobilise his supporters in rural areas and wins the elections with more than 51%. Any strong pro-EU turn with the Czech presidency is not happening. #Volby2018 #prezident2018 pic.twitter.com/vALeylYPom — Vojtech Nemec (@VNemecEU) January 27, 2018

University College London senior politics lecturer Sean Hanley said the incumbent won over more voters than in the last election in 2013.

Zeman has polled 110,000 votes more in 2018 than 2013. An impressive achievement given his poor health and patchy performance/campaign https://t.co/BLti1iwqE3 — Seán Hanley (@DrSeanHanley) January 27, 2018

President and PM aligned

One of the Czech president's duties is to select the prime minister.

Despite the fall of the Czech government this week, led by populist Andrej Babis, Zeman — a former left-wing prime minister — asked his ally to try again to form a new administration. He had vowed to swear Babis in again before his term expires on March 8. The PM is fighting police charges of EU subsidy fraud.

Zeman's pro-Russian stance and support for closer ties with China has divided the nation.

He's also a leading critic in eastern European states of the EU's migrant sharing policy, which aims to evenly distribute migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East throughout the bloc. His anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric has won him support with many voters.

Zeman won the first round on January 12-13, picking up 38.56 percent of the vote, from a field of nine candidates. Drahos came in second with 26.60%.

He is the Czech Republic's third president, after Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, and five years ago became the first to be picked by voters, not politicians.

This article was originally published on DW.com. Its content is separate from USA TODAY.