The two presidential candidates - Miloš Zeman and Karel Schwarzenberg -
faced off in a second televized debate on Friday evening, this time on the
private Prima Family channel. The atmosphere was more laid back than in
the
Czech Television debate the night before, but candidates took the
opportunity to take stabs at each other. Mr Zeman came back to the issue
of
the Beneš decrees and the expulsion of Sudeten Germans at the end of
World
War two, which Mr Schwarzenberg described on Thurdsay as a gross violation
of human rights according to today’s standards. The former prime
minister
strongly retorted in the Friday debate that describing a former
Czechoslovak president as a war criminal is not presidential. According to
some polls, Mr Zeman has been gaining more ground over his opponent in the
last week, after the two finished less than a percentage point apart in
the
first round of the elections.