Daily Times

Czech President Milos Zeman will cast his ballot in the upcoming general election at his residence, his office said on Thursday, stoking speculations about his poor health.

Zeman’s doctor visited the president on Thursday and “did not recommend him to vote at a polling station” in the Friday and Saturday election, Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said in a statement.

He added Zeman would also adjust his programme for the days to come based on the doctor’s recommendations, without giving any details.

The 77-year-old pro-Russian, pro-Chinese Zeman spent eight days in hospital in September for what his office described as “a reconditioning stay” as Zeman was exhausted and dehydrated. He saw his doctor on Monday, and Czech media said he had rejected the doctor’s advice to go to hospital for an additional scan.

On Thursday, Zeman’s office said it would sue a former minister and a doctor who suggested Zeman was suffering from cirrhosis as a result of his immoderate lifestyle.

But Vaclav Klaus, Zeman’s predecessor in the presidential seat, told the Impuls radio on Thursday Zeman had “a liver problem”.

“I think every little child knows that he has serious health problems and that they are definitely due to his lifestyle, the glass on the one hand and the cigarette on the other,” Klaus said.

Zeman, who suffers from diabetic neuropathy which has left him bound to a wheelchair since earlier this year, is due to nominate the new prime minister after the vote under the constitution.

He has already suggested he will appoint billionaire populist incumbent Andrej Babis, his close ally, whose ANO (YES) movement is tipped to win the vote.

Zeman normally votes in a school on the western outskirts of Prague.

During the presidential election in 2018, in which he won his second five-year term, he was assaulted by a half-naked activist from the Femen group calling him “Putin’s slut”.