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PRAGUE, March 8 (AP) For the past 10 years, Czech President Milos Zeman has sparked controversy, seeking a referendum on whether his country should leave the European Union, targeting immigrants and joking about killing journalists .
Many Czechs cheered the departure of their outgoing head of state on Wednesday.
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Around a hundred militants marched from Prague Castle, home to the presidential palace, to medieval Charles Bridge before burning a statue of Zeman and throwing it into the Vltava.
Organizer Tana Janatova said Zeman’s departure was “a huge relief.” It’s “a catharsis, a joy, a joy!”
Zeman’s main ceremonial post will be replaced by retired Army General Petr Pavel, who defeated a populist billionaire in the runoff presidential election on Jan. 28.
Pavel officially took over on Thursday.
The 78-year-old Zeman served two consecutive terms and polarized public opinion.
A divided country he brokered will be the most visible legacy of his reign, while many of his political agendas at home and abroad have failed.
While his predecessors Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus were elected by parliament, former prime minister Zeman was elected by a direct vote of the Czech public when he took office in 2013. His ally Andrej Babis, who ran unsuccessfully against Pavel in January, became finance minister and later prime minister that same year.
“It turns out that if a directly elected president has the will and faces a weak opponent in the prime minister, he can turn into a semi-dictator,” said Verakovarova, deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament from the Stein party.
Zeman is seen as more pro-European than his Eurosceptic predecessor Claus, but he has gradually used every opportunity to attack the EU, including its plans to tackle climate change. He proposed a referendum on the country’s membership in the bloc after Britain decided to leave, while saying he would vote to stay.
He has also sought closer ties with China and has become a leading pro-Russian voice in EU politics.
His critics have dubbed him a “servant of the Kremlin” for siding with Russia and expressing skepticism about his country’s own security and intelligence services’ findings that Russian spies were involved in a massive munitions bombing in 2014.
Zeman condemned “unwarranted acts of aggression” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, but he opposed initial EU sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea in 2014.
Zeman declared he would focus on economic diplomacy, but his promises of billions of dollars in Chinese investment never materialized, and his hopes of strengthening ties with Russia were dashed by the invasion of Ukraine.
On the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution against Communism in 1989, protesters threw eggs, sandwiches and tomatoes at him, accusing him of betraying the commitment to human rights that revolutionary hero Havel had embraced.
Zeman is one of the few European leaders to back Donald Trump’s bid for the White House and back his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
His pro-Israel views may be the only part of his foreign policy that is positively welcomed in his country, one of Israel’s strongest allies in the European Union.
In other controversial moves, Zeman also linked Islamist extremist attacks in Europe to migration, which he described as “an organized invasion”. He made derogatory comments about the #MeToo movement and transgender people and vowed to veto same-sex marriage legislation if Congress approved it.
The media came up with another target. On his first day in office, Zeman said some journalists were “brainwashing” and “manipulating public opinion.” He told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a conference in China that there were too many journalists and some should be “liquidated”.
At home, Zeman has been accused of trying to tailor the constitution to his own needs.
In 2019, the Senate, the upper house of parliament, voted to accuse him of failing to act constitutionally in eight cases, including repeatedly failing to appoint proposed government ministers.
But the lower house, dominated by the Babish party, did not follow suit and the case was never sent to the constitutional court for final hearing.
After the government collapsed in 2013, Zeman defied the coalition with a majority in parliament and installed a new technocratic government led by his advisers as prime minister.
Most constitutional lawyers and experts say he has no authority to do so.
The cabinet lost a confidence vote but stayed in power for half a year before snap elections, pushing ahead with some of Zeman’s projects, including an artificial waterway linking rivers in Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Experts consider the project impractical, and it was recently abandoned entirely by the current government.
Zeman was a heavy smoker with a soft spot for alcohol, but he said he followed his doctor’s advice to change his habit. He is diabetic, has trouble walking, and has been confined to a wheelchair.
Zeman has said he will settle in his new home near the presidential palace in Sirani, just outside Prague, and he also plans to open an office possibly near Prague Castle. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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