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The Christian Democrats and Freedom Union, the two smaller parties in the Czech governing coalition, have voiced preliminary support for university professor Jan Sokol as their candidate in the third round of presidential elections, due to be held on February 28th. Mr. Sokol, whose nomination was officially approved by the Social Democratic Party leadership on Saturday, appears to be the most acceptable figure so far to the three parties of the governing coalition who, due to their slim majority in parliament, need to unite behind a single candidate. If nominated, Mr. Sokol will stand against the former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, the official candidate of the opposition Civic Democrats. A third failure to elect a new president would most likely tip the scales in favour of direct presidential elections.

Demonstrations against a possible war on Iraq have taken place in a number of Czech cities.Close to a thousand protesters gathered on Wenceslas Square for an anti-war demonstration organized by the Communist party and several hundred people congregated on the Jan Palach Square for a protest organized by the Initiative Against War. The demonstrators carried placards reading "No blood for oil", " Stop the war" and "God said: Thou shall not kill". Similar protests took place in Ostrava and Brno on Saturday, where some 500 people signed an anti-war petition to be presented to Parliament. The protesters demanded that the Czech government and parliament should not wage a war in the name of the Czech people since surveys have shown that close to 70% of Czechs are in favour of a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis.

The Social Democratic Party leadership has unanimously approved the nomination of university professor Jan Sokol as the coalition's joint candidate in the third round of presidential elections. Mr. Sokol, a former dissident and education minister, is currently the only candidate being discussed by the three parties of the Czech governing coalition. If all three parties approve his nomination next week, Mr. Sokol will run against former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, who is the nominee of the center-right Civic Democratic Party. The third round of presidential elections is to take place on February 28th.

The deputy chairman of the Social Democrats Zdenek Skromach has said that university professor Jan Sokol is the only presidential candidate now being discussed by the three parties in the governing coalition. Mr Skromach said he did not expect hundred percent support from the junior coalition partners, the Christian Democrats and the Freedom Union, adding that a handful of Social Democrat MPs had not yet decided on whom to vote for in the upcoming election. However, Minister Skromach said he believed that politicians had learnt a lesson from the two previous inconclusive attempts to elect a Czech president, in which Social Democrat candidates, former Justice Minister Jaroslav Bures and former party chairman and Prime Minister Milos Zeman failed in the first round.