Drahos Accuses Zeman of Covering Up Russian Election Tampering

Prague, Jan 23 (CTK) – President Milos Zeman blamed his rival candidate, academic Jiri Drahos, for offending voters by expressing his suspicion of intelligence services’ influence on the last autumn general election, in their duel on TV Prima today.

 

Drahos, for his part, criticised Zeman, saying he would have known about this influence, had he read the Czech intelligence reports.

 

Some time ago, Drahos warned of the risk of foreign intelligence services influencing elections in the Czech Republic.

 

Zeman said today that Drahos had thereby turned voters into the “masses” being manipulated by foreign intelligence services.

 

Drahos replied that if the president had read the BIS counter-intelligence’s reports, he would have had information about such danger. He also said Zeman may learn about the Russian secret services having influenced elections in other countries as well.

 

Zeman said that unlike Drahos he was receiving the BIS reports. There is a difference between receiving and reading them, Drahos reacted to this.

 

Zeman, 73, and former Academy of Sciences head Drahos, 68, advanced from the first round of the presidential election on January 12-13 with almost 39 and 27 percent, respectively. They will fight for presidency on January 26-27.