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Nearly two thirds of respondents in a newly published STEM/MARK poll said that they would want a female president. Meanwhile, nearly 80 percent of respondents said that they can imagine a woman holding the presidential office in the Czech Republic. Civic Democrat Senator Miroslava Němcová is currently the woman polling the highest among prospective presidential candidates, followed by nuclear energy expert Dana Drábová.

The poll also asked the question whether former Prime Minister and ANO party leader Andrej Babiš is planning to run for the position of head of state. Three quarters of respondents said that they believe he will.

The presidential election is expected to take place before March 8, 2023.

The Czech Republic’s foreign debt rose year-on-year by CZK 150,3 billion to nearly CZK 4,472 trillion in 2021, according to preliminary data released by the Czech National Bank. The sum represented 73 percent of Czechia GDP. During the last quarter of 2021 alone, the country’s foreign debt rose by CZK 105 billion.

The most indebted sector of the Czech economy is the banking sector, which makes up 42.9 percent of the country’s total foreign debt.

Foreign debt is the sum of obligations that the country has agreed to pay back.

The Czech Republic’s new government must help strengthen media independence and pluralism, according to a new report focusing on media freedom and independence in the country that was published by the International Press Institute on Tuesday. The report focuses on what it claims to be the spread of media capture under the previous government of Andrej Babiš and provides recommendations for the new government led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala on how to reform and strengthen the independence and pluralism of the media sector.

According to the report, Andrej Babiš undermined the Czech public broadcaster Czech Television and steered government advertising to his media, as well as using his power in the media to “promote and defend his government’s record”. The report also claims that media capture in Czechia differs fundamentally from that going on in neighboring Hungary where this is mainly a state-led media takeover. IPI writes that many of the Czech Republic’s largest private media outlets have been acquired by a “handful of oligarchs for whom media could be used to promote their wider business interests”.

The International Press Insititute is a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists that is aimed at promoting conditions that allow journalism to fulfill its public function.

A natural space for further sanctions against Russia are those against banks that are already being sanctioned by the United States, the head of the European Policy Coordination section of the Office of the Government Štěpán Černý said in the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday.

Specifically, he referred to banks that are used for fossil fuel supply payments by EU member states. As soon as their will be political will to cut these supplies it will be possible to start sanctioning these banks, Mr Černý said. One possibility on how to do this would be to store payments into a reserve fund with a payout to the concerned state only possible once it would begin behaving responsibly again, the official said.