Do we like them?

Do we like Petr Pavel?

Our score: 8 out of 10. A decent, steady figure on the right side of LGBTQ+ rights and Ukraine who has copped real pressure for it, though I found no words from him on trans rights.

Pavel is a soldier's son who followed his father into military training in communist Czechoslovakia. He became an elite paratrooper and, as a lieutenant colonel in former Yugoslavia, helped evacuate French troops caught between Croats and Serb paramilitaries, which earned him the French Military Cross. After the Czech Republic joined NATO he rose to become the alliance's top military officer in 2015, and retired in 2018.

The awkward bit of his past is that he joined the Communist Party, as many in that era did. He has said membership was “normal” in his family but calls it a “mistake”. Reporting from his 2023 campaign shows he addressed it head-on rather than dodging, which counts for something.

The big fight this year was over Filip Turek, a Motorists party nominee for environment minister. Pavel refused to appoint him; Reuters reported Turek had faced criticism over a Nazi salute and posting Nazi memorabilia, and Turek says it was “bad taste”, not sympathy for Nazism. Pavel then accused Foreign Minister Petr Macinka of sending threatening messages through an adviser, called it blackmail, published them and referred them to the National Organized Crime Agency. Macinka rejected the blackmail claim and called it normal political bargaining, and tens of thousands rallied in Prague to back the president.

On the harm test, there is nothing nasty in what I read. He signed the 2024 law giving same-sex couples in registered partnerships most of the rights of married couples, though not marriage or full adoption, and the report of the signing carries no quote from him. I couldn't find his own words on trans rights, so that is a gap rather than a pass-or-fail. His main political stand is for Ukraine and the rule of law, not against any group.

The latest stoush is the NATO summit one. The government left him out of the delegation to Ankara, he filed a competence lawsuit, and the Constitutional Court issued a preliminary injunction ordering the government to let him attend. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the decision was practical and denied working against the president. By September Babiš confirmed Pavel would lead the delegation to the next summit, though he also said he would spare himself such controversies.

The good stuff is concrete. Pavel has pushed the Czech-led ammunition initiative for Ukraine, which he says has delivered about 4.4 million large-calibre rounds. When the Babiš government weighed ending it, it agreed to keep it going, but with no national money. In January 2026 Ukraine gave him its highest state award, the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise.