The Czech Republic finally has a new Prime Minister. Petr Fiala was appointed this Sunday morning by President Milos Zeman, released the day before from the hospital where he had been admitted because he tested positive for Covid-19. Former political scientist, leader of the conservative “Civic Democrats” party, Petr Fiala will have to get down to work very quickly with the epidemic outbreak affecting his country.
His appointment was originally to be announced last Friday, as Czech President Milos Zeman left the military hospital in Prague where he had been in treatment for several weeks for liver problems.
But barely out, the president had to new be admitted after testing positive for Covid-19. It is therefore finally this Sunday that Petr Fiala was officially appointed Prime Minister of the Czech Republic after an unusual ceremony, with a president in a wheelchair and protected by a plastic barrier, because positive for the coronavirus.
Petr Fiala therefore takes an armchair hitherto occupied by billionaire Andrej Babis whose populist movement ANO came only second in the last ballot.
Now, and by virtue of the Constitution, it is up to the president to appoint the government. A process that could be delayed because President Zeman believes that there is a problem with a person proposed by the new Prime Minister.
According to Petr Fiala, the government could be appointed by mid-December. And there is urgency because like many other European countries, the Czech Republic is facing an upsurge in Covid cases with one of the highest infection rates in the world recorded in recent days.