Czech lawmakers from both houses of parliament are to convene Friday to elect a president, they said after the voting process ended Saturday without producing a new head of state, DPA reported. They are to choose a president to hold office for the next five years, including the Czech Republic's presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2009. The entire voting process is to start all over again, as the parliamentarians failed to elect a president in the third round of voting, in which the winner must gain a majority of all lawmakers present. The first two rounds of voting took place late Friday after a protracted battle over whether the new Czech president should be elected in a secret or open ballot. Neither candidate - incumbent Vaclav Klaus, 66, and Czech-US economist Jan Svejnar, 55 - scored the required majority of 140 votes from the 278 lawmakers present in Saturday's last ballot. The frontrunner, political veteran Klaus, missed re-election by one vote as 139 lawmakers raised their hand in his favour. Political neophyte Svejnar won 113 votes. Both Klaus and Svejnar told reporters that they were ready to run again.
