CZECH VOTE TO REPLACE KLAUS.

The Czechs will go to the polls on 11-12 January to elect their president by direct universal suffrage for the first time ever, an election that could vote a pro-European leader into office after a decade under the very Eurosceptic Vaclav Klaus. The 8.4 million voters in this country that joined the EU in 2004, headed by a minority centre-right government, are voting against the backdrop of gloom caused by the economic recession. A second round will be held on 25-26 January if none of the candidates wins an absolute majority the first time around.

Milos Zeman, the left-of-centre prime minister in office from 1998-2002, and centrist candidate Jan Fischer, who headed a provisional cabinet in 2009-2010, are among the front runners. Zeman, a former chief of the CSSD...