Czech Republic’s 2023 presidential election: OSCE/ODIHR election expert team final report

The 2023 presidential election in the Czech Republic offered voters a wide variety of choices across the political spectrum. The overall campaign, both offline and online, was competitive but divisive, and voters could make an informed choice in both rounds. Campaign coverage was extensive in both public and private media, and contestants enjoyed allocated free airtime. The media overall fulfilled their watchdog function and positively, there were no verbal attacks by the candidates toward journalists. Political finance is adequately regulated, however, consideration should be given to further enhancing transparency of campaign finance.

These are some of the main conclusions from the final report on the Czech Republic’s 2023 presidential election, published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The report offers nine recommendations to bring elections in the Czech Republic closer in line with OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections

Recommendations include:

• Strengthening the electoral participation of people with disabilities through accessible and easy-to-understand format campaign materials;

• Recognizing violence against women in the campaign by political parties and institutions as a barrier to women’s political participation, and strengthening existing proactive and preventive measures against such actions;

• Introducing reasonable limits on individual donations from natural and legal persons for presidential campaigns to avoid undue influence by donors;

• Regulating foreign donations for presidential campaigns;

• Providing the Office for Oversight with adequate financial and human resources to ensure effective oversight;

• Introducing a reasonable timeline for the Office for Oversight to publish the results of campaign finance audit;

• Introducing thresholds for ownership across all media types and an impact assessment of potential mergers on media pluralism before their approval;

• Repealing criminal sanctions for defamation in favour of proportionate civil sanctions;

• Providing adequate funding to public media to guarantee editorial independence and programmatic quality.

ODIHR deployed an Election Expert Team on 9 January 2023 to observe the presidential election. All 57 participating States across the OSCE region have formally committed to following up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations.