Petr Pavel: Ukrainian supporter and military hero who won the Czech presidency

Ex-General Petr Pavel has won another rough campaign, this time at the ballot box.

The bearded 61-year-old, a decorated veteran who took part in a major peacekeeping mission in the Balkans and represented his country as a leading NATO general, was elected Czech president on Saturday, defeating billionaire former prime minister Andrej Babiš.

With 97% ballots from nearly 15,000 polling stations counted by the Czech Statistical Office, Pavel had 57.8% of the vote, compared to 42.2% for Babiš.

While Czech presidents wield little day-to-day power, Pavel will influence foreign policy and government opinion, as well as the power to appoint prime ministers, constitutional judges and central bankers.

True to his military past, he has vowed to bring “order” to the Czech Republic, a 10 million EU and NATO member hammered by record inflation and economic turmoil due to the war in Ukraine.

“I can’t help but feel that people here are feeling more and more chaos, disorder and uncertainty. That somehow the state has stopped functioning,” Pavel said on his campaign website.

“We have to change this,” he added. “We have to play by the rules, which apply to everyone. We need a general investigation.”

From communist to war hero

Following in his father’s footsteps, Pavel received military training in the former Czechoslovakia, then ruled by Kremlin-backed communists.

He joined the Communist Party like his billionaire rival Babiš and soon rose through the army ranks and studied to become an intelligence agent for the regime.

Critics blame him for his communist past, although Pavel has defended himself by saying that party membership was “normal” in his family and called it a “mistake”.

When the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1989, Pavel threw away his party ID but continued the intelligence course.

Amid the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Pavel – trained as an elite paratrooper and at the time held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel – helped evacuate French troops trapped in the midst of fighting between Croats and ethnic Serb paramilitaries in Croatia, earning him the title awarded French Military Cross for bravery.

“We got into several tense situations and he always solved them with deliberation and calmness,” said retired Czech general Aleš Opata, who served with Pavel.

He later studied at military training schools in Great Britain and obtained a master’s degree from King’s College London.

After his country joined NATO in 1999, Pavel quickly rose through the ranks of the alliance and became its top military official in 2015.

He retired in 2018 with a chest full of decorations.

What are his political views?

Pavel was an independent and was the strongest of the three candidates supported by the liberal-conservative coalition SPOLU of the now former president Miloš Zeman.

He has advocated better redistribution of wealth and more taxation of the wealthy, while supporting progressive policies on issues such as same-sex marriage and euthanasia.

Pavel positions himself as a counterweight to populism, anchors the Czech Republic in NATO and wants to align his country with the European Union.

“The main question at stake is whether chaos and populism will continue to reign supreme or whether we will return to rule-compliance… and whether we will be a trustworthy country for our allies,” he said after a narrow victory in the first round of elections.

Pavel’s political rivals, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, have claimed he would drag the country into war with Russia.

“I know what war is about and I certainly don’t wish that on anyone,” said Pavel. “The first thing I would do is try to keep the country as far away from war as possible.”

Pavel, who often wears jeans and a leather jacket, is a polyglot, speaks Czech, English, French and Russian and enjoys riding motorcycles.

He has a concealed gun permit, which allows him to carry a firearm, and is married to a fellow soldier, Eva Pavlová.