In the run-off against strongly pro-European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...academic Jiri Drahos, Zeman scored 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent for his challenger.
Zeman, 73, is the last prominent figure among active politicians from the country's post-communist transitional period in the 1990s, and has shifted from being a centre-left prime minister 16 years ago to being a president with leanings toward the far-right.
The vote showed Czech voters' concerns over security despite a period of fast economic growth and rising wages. Immigration was a key issue, more than two years after the European Union first faced a major influx of refugees - almost none of whom ever appeared in the Czech Republic.
The result will also influence the formation of the next Czech government, with Zeman one of the few political backers of Prime Minister Andrej Babis, whose minority cabinet lost a confidence vote this month due to fraud allegations hanging over the billionaire businessman.
Zeman has been a polarising force, publicly belittling opponents and sniping at intellectual elites and the media. He was one of the few European politicians to back Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
He has upset many with his warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...and calls to end EU sanctions against Moscow imposed over its annexation of Crimea.
His stance toward Brussels has been lukewarm. He calls himself a federalist and supports membership of the EU while also favouring holding an in-or-out referendum, like the one that led to Britannia's impending exit.
Speaking to supporters after claiming victory, Zeman said he would continue travelling the country to meet citizens and hear their worries.
"This is my last political victory, there will be no political defeats," he told the crowd, flanked by advisers and the leaders of the far-right, anti-EU and anti-NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure....
SPD party and the Social Democrat party that he once led.
Clash Of Personalities
Zeman has benefited from rising hostility to immigration, especially to people coming from Moslem states, although the country of 10.6 million received just 116 asylum applications between January and November last year and has only a tiny Moslem community.
Both candidates rejected the EU's refugee quotas, but Drahos was labelled weaker on the issue in attack ads in the last week by Zeman supporters.
The two presidential candidates were as different personally as politically. Zeman has a self-advertised appetite for alcohol and tobacco and his health is a concern - he suffers from diabetes, and walks with a stick.
Drahos is a soft-spoken chemistry professor who promised a stronger voice in the EU, reversing the country's aloofness that has put it closer to Poland and Hungary - two states often at loggerheads with the bloc's executive.