Last weekend the first round of the presidential elections took place in the Czech Republic, with a very high voter turnout of 68.23%. Since none of the candidates won a majority of the total votes (over 50%), the two most successful candidates, Petr Pavel and Andrej Babiš, will advance to the second round. The success of Petr Pavel and Andrej Babiš is no surprise and it is in line with opinion polls published prior to the first round.

However, the result of the candidate at the third-place, Danuše Nerudová, who was according to the pre-election polls one of the front-runners, must be disappointing. Only 14% of the votes represents a significant drop compared to initial expectations. As recently as December 2022, polls attributed her 28% of the votes