CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech politicians yesterday chose the controversial former prime minister Mr Vaclav Klaus as the country's new president nearly a month after President Vaclav Havel stood down.
Mr Klaus narrowly captured a majority of parliamentary votes in the third vote in six weeks, beating the candidate put forward by the country's centre-left government.
"Vaclav Klaus was elected president and we will congratulate him," said Mr Vladimir Spidla, the Czech Prime Minister, adding that the result was "not a success" for his government, .
Mr Klaus was the candidate of the right-wing Civic Democratic Party, the party he lead until last year.
He was the first finance minister of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, pushing through market reforms and privatisation.
Mr Klaus has raised hackles in Brussels with comments critical of the EU and its eastward enlargement, remarking that EU members see the accession of the Czech Republic not as the return of a lost son but as the adoption of a child they know nothing about.
