Czechmate: On the Czech Presidential Election, with Marco Nemeth
The second episode of my new podcast, “Loosely Eastern Europe” is now up on Spotify and SoundCloud! Let me know in the comments if I should start uploading it to other streaming platforms as well.
For this episode, I speak with Marco Nemeth, a journalist, author of Europa v Kocke (“Europe in a cube”), and Marcin Król Fellow for Visegrad Insight.
We speak about the newly-elected Czech president, Petr Pavel, and the campaigns of Pavel and his opponent, Andrej Babis. We analyze the role disinformation played in the election, as well as the general appeal Babis has for voters in the Czech Republic.
Finally, we touch on the significance of Slovakia’s president Zuzana Caputova showing up at Pavel’s election celebration in Prague just hours after the announcement.
Here’s a brief background on Czech political affairs for those of you who would want some more context.
The Political Affairs of the Czech Republic
The Czechs were admitted to the EU when Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland were in 2004. The Czech R. has similar democratic problems as Slovakia.
The Economist Intelligence Unit rated the Czech R. as a “flawed democracy” in 2019, for example. Milos Zeman, an…
