Players.bio is a large online platform sharing the best live coverage of your favourite sports: Football, Golf, Rugby, Cricket, F1, Boxing, NFL, NBA, plus the latest sports news, transfers & scores. Exclusive interviews, fresh photos and videos, breaking news. Stay tuned to know everything you wish about your favorite stars 24/7. Check our daily updates and make sure you don't miss anything about celebrities' lives.

Contacts

  • Owner: SNOWLAND s.r.o.
  • Registration certificate 06691200
  • 16200, Na okraji 381/41, Veleslavín, 162 00 Praha 6
  • Czech Republic

Petr Pavel: Ukraine supporter and military hero who swept to the Czech presidency

Ex-general Petr Pavel has won another gritty campaign -- this time at the ballot box.

The bearded 61-year-old, a decorated veteran who took part in a high-stakes peacekeeping mission in the Balkans and represented his country as a top-tier NATO general, was voted Czech president on Saturday, beating billionaire ex-prime minister Andrej Babiš.

With the ballots from 97% of almost 15,000 polling stations counted by the Czech Statistics Office, Pavel had 57.8% of the vote compared with 42.2% for Babiš.

Though Czech presidents wield little day-to-day power, Pavel will have influence over foreign policy and government opinion, as well as the power to appoint prime ministers, constitutional judges and central bankers.

True to his military past, he has vowed to bring "order" to the Czech Republic, a 10 million-strong EU and NATO member, hammered by record inflation and economic turmoil due to the Ukraine war.

"I can't ignore the fact that people here increasingly feel chaos, disorder and uncertainty. That the state has somehow ceased to function," Pavel said on his campaign website.

"We need to change this," he added. "We need to play by the rules, which will be valid for everyone alike. We need a general sweep."

Following in his father’s footsteps, Pavel underwent a military education in former Czechoslovakia, which was then ruled by Kremlin-backed communists.

He joined the Communist Party, like his billionaire rival Babiš, and soon rose through the army ranks, studying to become an intelligence agent for the regime.

Critics fault him for his communist past, though Pavel has defended himself by saying party membership was “normal” in his family and called it a “mistake”.

When the Iron Curtain crumbled in 1989, Pavel chucked out his party

Read more on euronews.com