Ex-PM Babis in early lead in Czech presidential election

PRAGUE (AP) — Early results in the Czech presidential election show that populist billionaire Andrej Babis is in the lead. The Czech Statistics Office said Saturday that Babis had 38% of the vote with ballots from about 50% of polling stations counted. Main challenger retired army Gen. Petr Pavel was running second with 32.5% while former university rector Danuse Nerudova was in third with 13.7%. The Czechs are electing a new president to succeed Milos Zeman in the largely ceremonial post. The top two finishers will face each other in a runoff in two weeks’ time if no candidate achieves a majority.