Petr Pavel: The retired army general set to become Czechia’s next president
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Loading... - Stjepan Jankovic
- 08 Feb 2023
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General Petr Pavel has been elected Czechia’s fourth president, beating the Slovak-born billionaire and former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš in a runoff. A career soldier, Pavel served as Chief of the Czech Army’s General Staff and later as Chair of NATO’s Military Committee. He retired in 2018.
Petr Pavel was born in the town of Planá in West Bohemia on November 1, 1961. The son of a soldier, Pavel entered the military grammar school in Opava during his teens and then the army university in Vyškov, where he became a candidate for membership in the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Graduating in 1983, he went on to lead an elite airborne reconnaissance platoon in Prostějov. Then in 1988, Pavel was selected for post-graduate intelligence training at the military academy in Brno.
His early communist affiliation would come back to haunt Pavel during the presidential election. The future president said in his defence that he only agreed to become a party candidate because he believed he would otherwise not be able to lead the paratroopers. Read More…
