Former general Petr Pavel and former leader of the NATO military committee, assumes the presidency of the Czech Republic tomorrow, Thursday, in succession of the social democrat Milos Zeman.
Pavel will take office for a five-year term in a solemn act in the Gothic Vladislaus Hall of Prague Castle, seat of the country's presidency, where he will be sworn in before the head of the Senate and with the rest of the legislators as witnesses.
Despite not having experience in the sphere of politics, he won the presidential elections in January, running as an independent candidate.
He will thus become the fourth Czech president since the country's split from the former Czechoslovakia in 1993 (after the end of the communist regime) and the second directly elected by universal suffrage at the polls, since the first two had been appointed by Parliament .
The Czech Republic, a country of 10.7 million inhabitants and under a communist regime until 1989, has been part of NATO since 1999 and the European Union (EU) since 2004. Today it is one of the nations that most supports Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
Pavel was a member of the communist party between 1985 and 1989, something that years later he described as a "mistake", and worked in military intelligence between 1991 and 1993, when the country had already begun its transition towards a democratic system.
Between 2012-2015 he was chief of the General Staff of the Czech army, a position he left to chair the NATO military committee (2015-2018), the second most important position in the Alliance.
The former soldier, who in the elections had the sympathy of the center-right government despite not being its official candidate, has made clear his strong support for Ukraine, and advocates that the attacked country join NATO after the end of the war .
Pavel has a liberal vision on social issues, is a supporter of euthanasia and has indicated that he would not veto gay marriage.
Zeman is leaving the presidency that he held for the last ten years - the maximum period (two terms) allowed by law -, in which he stood out for expressing sympathies towards Russia and China.
For a few hours, between midnight today and noon tomorrow, the Central European country will not have a head of state, whose functions fall during that brief period of time to the prime minister and the presidents of the parliamentary chambers.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
