Zeman wins first round of Czech presidential elections

Milos Zeman, the incumbent Czech president known for his anti-immigration stance, has won the first round of the Czech presidential election, which finished on Saturday. He defeated eight other candidates, winning 38.56 percent of the vote. The first runner-up was pro-EU candidate Jiri Drahos, a 68-year-old chemistry professor and former chief of the academy of science, with 26.6 percent of ballots cast. Since no candidate gained 50 percent or more of the vote in this first round, the two leading candidates will face each other in a runoff on January 26-27.