Petr Pavel

Pavel won the first round of the election with 35 percent and went on to win the runoff against former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš with 58 percent of the vote, to become the fourth president of the Czech Republic and 12th president since the Czechoslovak declaration of independence in 1918.

Pavel was inaugurated on 9 March 2023, succeeding Miloš Zeman.

He is the second president with a military background (after Ludvík Svoboda) and the first without political experience.

In his first hundred days in office, Pavel appointed three judges to the Constitutional Court and made 11 international trips, including a visit to Kyiv and Dnipro, becoming the first foreign head of state to travel to Eastern Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.

Petr Pavel (born 1 November 1961) is a Czech politician and retired army general, currently serving as the president of the Czech Republic since March 2023.

Pavel was born on 1 November 1961 in Planá, then part of Czechoslovakia.

His father was an intelligence officer who served at the Western Military District command in Tábor from 1973 to 1989.

Pavel graduated from the Jan Žižka Military gymnasium in Opava.

Born in Planá to a military family, Pavel enlisted right after graduating from military academy in 1983.

He continued his studies at the Military University of the Ground Forces in Vyškov, graduating in 1983 and subsequently joining the Czechoslovak Army as a paratrooper, serving as a platoon leader.

He served in the Czechoslovak People's Army and joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1985.

In 1985, after a two-year mandatory waiting period, Pavel joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, remaining a member until the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989.

He later cooperated with dissidents such as Luboš Dobrovský and Radovan Procházka and referred to his membership in the Communist Party as a mistake, which he atoned for by serving the democratic cause.

In 1988, Pavel joined the military intelligence service and continued his studies at the Military Academy in Brno (later merged with the University of Defence) from 1988 to 1991.

After the Velvet Revolution, he studied at Defense Intelligence College in Bethesda, Staff College in Camberley, Royal College of Defence Studies in London, and graduated from King's College London with a master's degree in international relations.

Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, and the subsequent dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Pavel served in the newly established Czech Army and participated in the 1993 evacuation of Karin Base during the Croatian War of Independence, which earned him praise and international recognition.

After graduating, from 1991 to 1993 Pavel worked in the Military Intelligence service of the General Staff of the Czechoslovak Armed Forces.

Pavel served in the 1st Czechoslovak Battalion of the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia.

In January 1993, his unit was sent as part of the evacuation of Karin Base, a French military post under siege by Serbian troops.

The French Army was unable to evacuate the base because the local infrastructure and bridge had been destroyed, and the unit from the combined Czech and Slovak Battalion (last Czechoslovak military unit) was sent to conduct the evacuation as they were stationed only 30 kilometres from Karin Base.

Pavel went to the base with 29 soldiers and two OT-64 SKOT armoured personnel carriers.

During the two-hour journey, his unit faced various obstacles that slowed down the operation, including fallen trees which soldiers had to remove from the road while under mortar fire.

When the unit reached Karin Base, two French soldiers were already dead and several others wounded.

Eventually, 55 French soldiers were evacuated from the base in armed transporters.

Pavel was recognized and decorated by both the Czech Republic and France for his conduct of the rescue.

After the operation in Bosnia, Pavel served in various positions in the Czech Army, including military intelligence and diplomacy.

He represented the Czech Republic in several military diplomatic positions in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States.

From 1993 to 1994, Pavel was the deputy military attaché of the Czech Republic in Belgium.

From 1999 to 2002, he was the representative at the NATO headquarters in Brunssum.

In 2003, he served as the National Military Representative at the United States Central Command at Operation Enduring Freedom headquarters in Tampa.

During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, he served as a liaison officer at the U.S. headquarters in Qatar.

During this time, he warned that Iraq might use weapons of mass destruction against invading forces.

Pavel rose through the ranks of the military to become the Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces from 2012 to 2015.

At NATO, he oversaw the Alliance's response and fallout of the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and the 2018 Turkish invasion of Afrin, as well as efforts to tackle rising Chinese influence.

Pavel retired from the military after 44 years and was discharged with honors after his term expired.

In 2021, Pavel announced his presidential bid in the 2023 election.

He ran on a platform of closer cooperation with NATO allies, support for Ukraine and greater involvement in the European Union.

He embraced a hawkish stance on Russia and China.

Prior to this, he held the position of Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2015 to 2018, and served as the Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces between 2012 and 2015.

He was subsequently selected as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee between 2015 and 2018, becoming the first military officer from the former Eastern Bloc to hold the post.