Top court receives nine complaints against direct presidential vote

The Czech Supreme Administrative Court has received nine complaints over the recent direct presidential election, the news agency ČTK reported on Friday. The agency said one of the petitions came from an activist who complains about the decision by the Interior Ministry to disqualify two aspirants – Vladimír Dlouhý and Tomio Okamura – from the race; another complaint is reportedly related to the choice of members of election committees overseeing the voting. A Czech anti-corruption group said they would also file a complaint because of an alleged breach of the voting law which they believe took place when a supporter of Miloš Zeman ran a full-page advertisement against the other candidate in the running, Karel Schwarzenberg, on the first day of voting in the second round. People can file complaints against the election until February 5; the court will than have 15 days to review them.