The Ipsos and Median polls for the second round of the presidential elections in Jan. turned out to be accurate in predicting a win of 58-42% by Petr Pavel over Andrej Babiš. No one could be sure of such a wide margin, though, so the government of Petr Fiala treaded lightly in announcing changes to its policy statement. Fiala continues to deny it, but it's now almost universally accepted that the ruling coalition intentionally delayed announcing a reduction in the June inflation adjustment for pensions so that Babiš couldn't use it against Pavel. Fiala helped both himself and Pavel then but is now complicating his own position by declaring that it would be "irresponsible" of Pavel to veto the reduction (because then it couldn't take effect on time). Fiala was hesitant to make such a strong statement yesterday on OVM but did (at 36m). Pavel already had his doubts about the constitutionality of the reduction; his motivation to show that he isn't the coalition's president will now be all that much greater. [ Czech Republic indexation ]