At 11:00 a.m., Czech President Miloš Zeman appointed Petr Fiala (ODS), who headed the winning coalition SPOLU in the October elections, as the new Prime Minister. Due to the coronavirus infection, Zeman is appointing the new Prime Minister from a Plexiglas showcase.
The president must be in isolation for 14 days.
To avoid any contact with an infected person, Chief Hygienist Pavla Svrčinová warned that the ceremony must be either in separate rooms or in one separated by an impenetrable barrier.
The castle office eventually opted for the second option. Zeman, therefore, signed the appointment decree on Saturday. The document was subsequently disinfected.
However, even after the appointment of Fiala as prime minister, the resigned cabinet of Andrej Babiš (ANO) will continue to rule until a new government is appointed.
The situation in which the republic has two prime ministers not directly addressed by the Constitution of the Czech Republic. However, it does state that the president “entrusts the government whose resignation he has accepted or which he has dismissed with the exercise of its functions on a provisional basis until a new government is appointed.”.
The mandate applies to the government as a whole and ends with the appointment and promise of a new government to the President, even if it does not then gain the confidence of the House. This is the case of the current Babiš cabinet, which resigned on November 11, shortly after the new House was established.