Prague - Former Prime Minister Milos Zeman officially announced his presidential candidacy on Tuesday 26 June.
Zeman' Party of Civic Rights - Zemanovci (SPOZ) managed to collect 50,000 signatures necessary for the candidacy.
"This is a turning point. Now we will pull together the (election) team. We haven't spoken yet about where we will raise the funds," said SPOZ chairman Vratislav Mynar, who had also been in charge of the campaign to collect signatures.
Mynar said that it is not decided yet how will the presidential campaign look like, whether it will focus on billboards or Zeman's trademark bus tours.
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What is decided is that all voters will receive a short biography of Milos Zeman. "Milos called it the 'Life Story' and it basically consists of two A4 sheets," said Mynar, adding that the campaign will start "in a very short time".
Analyst: "Zeman has a chance"
Political scientist Tomas Lebeda says that the Czech presidential election will favor strong party candidates or candidates supported by big parties, but under certain conditions Milos Zeman can succeed.
"Milos Zeman has a chance if there is a weak Social Democratic candidate. Thus it will depend on how will (Social Democracy's) Jiri Dienstbier fare in the election campaign," explained Lebeda.
Importantly, a part of the Social Democratic Party supports Zeman.
"It is difficult to make a prediction of this election, practically anything can happen. There is no previous experience with a direct presidential election. There is some experience with the two-round electoral system used in the Senate elections, but they have very low turnout," said Lebeda.
"Furthermore, currently there are no strong party candidates," added Lebeda.
According to an opinion poll conducted by Factum Invenio in May, the most popular candidate is ex-PM Jan Fisher (supported by 24.1 percent of voters), followed by Jan Svejnar (15.8 percent) and Milos Zeman (13.3 percent).
TOP 09 has nominated Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, while Senate vice president Premysl Sobotka is the most likely winner of the ongoing ODS primaries.
