Zeman defeated Schwarzenberg, castle will host leftist president

Milos Zeman’s victory in the Czech Republic’s presidential election sets up a clash with the government over its economic program aimed at cutting the budget deficit in the midst of a recession. Zeman defeated Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister, in the run-off vote on Jan. 25-26 with 54.80% of the vote in the second round. The former premier Zeman promotes progressive taxation and closer ties with the European Union, bringing a new foreign-policy outlook after a decade under the euroskeptic Vaclav Klaus. “A leftist president logically must be an opponent of a rightist government,” Zeman said in his first interview on the public Czech Television channel on Jan. 26. “In a number of specific laws, I will represent the leftist position.” The Czech economy is suffering from weakening domestic demand after the Cabinet cut investments and raised taxes to trim the budget gap.