PRAGUE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- There will be maximally nine candidates to compete for Czech presidency, and the remaining do not meet the legal conditions for a presidential campaign, said Klara Peknicova from Czech Interior Ministry's press section on Friday.
Current Czech President Milos Zeman, who will seek re-election, former Science Academy chairman Jiri Drahos and entrepreneur and lyricist Michal Horacek announced that they submitted sufficient signatures of people.
Skoda Auto former board chairman Vratislav Kulhanek, Defence and Security Industry Association President Jiri Hynek, and musician and The Reasonable party head Petr Hannig announced they had sufficient support of at least 20 MPs. Former Czech ambassador to France Pavel Fischer, physician Marek Hilser and ex-prime minister Mirek Topolanek declared their support by senators.
The Czech Interior Ministry will now assess the bids in administrative proceedings and decide which candidates will be able to run in the election by Nov. 24.
According to Czech law, the candidates can take part in the presidential contest if they collect 50,000 signatures of citizens on their petitions, or the signatures of at least 20 deputies or at least 10 senators. Over 20 people expressed interest in the campaign, two of them were women.
