Final Word from Thursday, January 18, 2018

All statistically significant first-round losers in the Czech presidential race have endorsed Jiří Drahoš. This means Pavel Fischer, Michal Horáček, Marek Hilšer and Mirek Topolánek. The first-round debates were essentially part of the primary elections of the anti-Zeman camp, and this is the way both political scientist Tomáš Lebeda and commentator Patrik Eichler of Deník Referendum saw it. Zeman was the incumbent president and the only viable candidate in the primaries of the pro-Zeman camp. When Barack Obama was in a similar situation in 2012, he refused to take part in the debate of the Democratic Party. Nor did George W. Bush debate his Republican rivals when he ran for reelection in 2004. They both, of course, debated the candidate of the other party once he was chosen. Miloš Zeman chose the same strategy as Obama and Bush. To say that any of these three was "scared" to face a first-round opponent is a misrepresentation of the political reality. [Czech Republic]