Prague, (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman will not accept the resignation of the minority government of Andrej Babis (ANO) this week, although he originally announced it, because of his busy schedule, his spokesman Jiri Ovcacek told CTK today.
“We failed to find any time in the president’s programme,” he said.
Ovcacek said Zeman is preparing for the television duels with his challenger Jiri Drahos that are planned before the presidential runoff scheduled for January 26-27.
Babis’s minority cabinet lost a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament on Tuesday. This result was expected as none of the other parties in the house planned to support or tolerate the cabinet. In consequence, Babis’s cabinet approved its resignation at its meeting this morning.
Ovcacek said earlier today Zeman would meet Babis and then accept the resignation of his cabinet this week.
But he said now that no date for the meeting of Zeman and Babis has been set so far.
He added that the meeting would take place, Zeman would accept the resignation and entrust ANO’s minority government with ruling the country until the appointment of a new government.
“We will of course announce the meeting in advance,” Ovcacek said.
He said Zeman is preparing for the TV duels with Drahos at the presidential chateau in Lany near Prague.
On Saturday, Zeman clearly won the first round of the presidential election ahead of academic Drahos who advanced to the runoff along with him. However, the unsuccessful candidates who ended in the third to the sixth positions supported Drahos and criticised Zeman.