Miloš Zeman is a Czech politician born on 28 September 1944 in Kolín. From 1998 to 2002 he headed the government of the Czech Republic; before that he chaired the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and led the Czech Social Democratic Party. He also held the office of President of the Republic.[1]
Youth and studies
After his school-leaving exam at a secondary school of economics he was refused admission to university for political reasons. He was able to study at the Prague University of Economics and Business only after four years, in a part-time programme. He completed his studies in 1969.[1]
During the Prague Spring he joined the Communist Party. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia he was expelled from it because he sharply criticised the emerging normalisation regime. In July 1968 he had also wanted to join the Social Democrats, but the then regime prevented the party's revival.[1]
Employment during normalisation
Because of these circumstances, finding work was difficult. For fourteen years he worked in a sports organisation, where he founded a forecasting centre. The authorities closed it in 1984 because of critical studies on the development of society. He found another post in an agricultural organisation, where everything repeated itself, and in 1989 he had to leave. Throughout this period he devoted himself to forecasting models of social systems.[1]
Political career after 1989
In the 1989 revolution he became involved in the Civic Forum, specifically in its centre-left wing. In 1990 he was elected a member of the Federal Assembly, where he chaired the budget committee and worked closely with the Club of Social Democratic Orientation.[1]
He joined the ČSSD in 1992 and in that year's elections defended his seat in the Federal Assembly. In the same year he became chairman of the party's Prague city organisation. At the congress in Hradec Králové in 1993 he was elected chairman of the entire ČSSD, and he was confirmed as party leader by the congresses of 1995 and 1997.[1]
In the 1996 elections he stood in the North Moravian electoral region and won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. He became Speaker of the Chamber on 27 June 1996. In the early elections of June 1998 he succeeded again in the North Moravian region.[1]
Prime Minister
He held the office of Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 17 July 1998 to 12 July 2002. He did not stand in the 2002 elections and retired.[1]
President of the Republic and honours
Miloš Zeman was President of the Czech Republic. At the celebrations of the Serbian Statehood Day, held on Saturday 15 February 2020 in the presidential palace, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić presented him with the Order of the Republic of Serbia on a ribbon, the highest Serbian honour.[2]
Czech Television later reported on a report by the Supreme Audit Office concerning the period when Zeman was president. The office stated in it that the Office of the President had managed public funds wastefully and had violated legal regulations. The report mentions, among other things, the purpose-driven splitting of contracts and errors in accounting.[3]