The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, has set the stage for a constitutional tug of war after rejecting the nominee to be the country’s next foreign minister on the grounds of his allegedly poor degree thesis.
In a move decried as legally baseless by many constitutional scholars, Zeman refused to accept the nomination of Jan Lipavský, citing “low qualifications” and adding that he had only completed a bachelor’s degree, which he said was a lower qualification than those held by all other proposed ministers in the incoming coalition government.
He singled out Lipavský’s bachelor’s dissertation, saying examiners had awarded it “the worst possible grade”.
The basis of Zeman’s criticism was confirmed by Czech Radio, which reported that the thesis, on the politicisation of Russian energy supplies, had received a grade 3, the lowest band, after Lipavský defended it at Charles University’s international studies institute in Prague.
However, critics questioned the reasoning and pointed out that Zeman had approved the temporary appointment of Jan Hamáček as acting foreign minister in the outgoing government, despite Hamáček holding only a high school diploma.
Zeman, an outspoken populist, also lambasted Lipavský for supposedly “distant attitudes” towards Israel and the so-called Visegrád group comprising Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, formed after the demise of communism in eastern Europe.
He further criticised him for suggesting that an event marking Sudeten German day – in memory of ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after the second world war – should be staged in the Czech Republic.
Lipavský, a member of the liberal Pirates party, has vowed to return Czech foreign policy to the explicitly pro-western position championed by the country’s first post-communist leader, Václav Havel, and pledged a tougher line towards Russia and China, with whose governments the president has fostered closer ties.
The disagreement threatened to further delay the inauguration of the new coalition, which is still waiting to take office two months after a general election resulted in defeat for the government of Andrej Babiš, the sitting prime minister who continues to govern on a caretaker basis.
Petr Fiala, the prime minister-designate, said he would insist on Lipavský’s appointment and vowed to take the matter to the constitutional court after a scheduled meeting with Zeman at the presidential countryside retreat at Chateau Lány next Monday.
“It is necessary for the constitutional court to resolve once and for all the question of competence regarding the appointment of new members of the government,” tweeted Fiala, leader of the centre-right Spolu grouping, the coalition’s senior partners.
Analysts said the court could to take up to seven weeks to resolve the dispute, with most predicting a ruling against Zeman. To avoid such a delay in forming a new government, Fiala could accept a cabinet without a foreign minister or nominate himself temporarily for the role, while filing Lipavský’s nomination before the court.