Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in the Czech Republic October 3-4, 2025. For the first time, Czech citizens living abroad will be able to vote by mail this election.
In August 2024, the president of the Czech Republic signed a bill that allows Czech citizens to vote by mail in the parliamentary, presidential and European elections (to the European Parliament). The amendment to the Election Administration Act and the Act on Elections to the Parliament of the Czech Republic means that Czechs will be able to vote by mail for the first time in parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2025.
Meet the Guests:
Jiri Pehe is director of NYU Prague and an affiliated faculty member at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University in New York. He also serves as a foreign policy advisers to current Czech President Petr Pavel. From September 1997 to May 1999, he was Director of the Political Department of Czech President Vaclav Havel and served as President Havel’s adviser until 2003. Previously he served as Director of Central European Research at the Research Institute of RFE/RL in Munich, Germany He is a political analyst and the author of six books on politics as well as five novels. He has written extensively on developments in Eastern Europe for American, Czech, and German periodicals and academic journals.
Jiri Kratky, Special Envoy for Expatriate Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
We will be also joined by Jakub Uteseny, the Consul General of the Czech Republic in Chicago.
Meet the Hosts:
Miroslav (Mirek) Konvalina is a seasoned public diplomacy professional with extensive experience in the Czech Republic and the U.S. He served as director of Czech Center New York and led the American Center at the U.S. Embassy in Prague for seven years. Konvalina studied journalism in both countries and holds a degree in economics. He has worked in government communications, as a Czech Radio correspondent in Washington, D.C., and as director of Czech Radiojournal. He also held a marketing leadership role at Newton Media. An author, documentarian, and curator, Konvalina has hosted a talk show in Prague and is fluent in Czech, English, Russian, and basic German.
Pavol Demeš is an independent foreign policy analyst, civil society expert, photographer, and TV anchor based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Before the 1989 Velvet Revolution, he was a biomedical researcher at Comenius University. He later served as executive director of the Slovak Academic Information Agency, Slovakia’s minister of international relations (1991–1992), and foreign policy adviser to the president (1993–1997). From 2000 to 2010, he directed Central and Eastern Europe programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He hosted a TV program on international relations for TASR and has authored numerous works on civil society and diplomacy.
About the Series:
Voices of the Homelands Webinar is presented by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library with hosts Dr. Pavol Demeš and Miroslav Konvalina. The bi-monthly webinar is available free to the public on Zoom. Future topics include the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Czech Parliamentary elections, the Cleveland Agreement, and International Students’ Day. The webinar is free and open to the public. During the virtual discussion, viewers are encouraged to participate in the conversation by submitting questions.
To watch previous webinars, visit NCSML.org/voices-homelands
