Former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is leading the first round of the Czech presidential election, according to partial results released on Saturday, with 39.1% of the vote, ahead of his rival Petr Pavel, a former NATO general, who received 31.4% of the vote. Reuters reports.

The first preliminary partial results were announced after counting the votes in 25.4% of the constituencies.

The top two finishers will face each other in the presidential runoff in two weeks.

According to Saturday’s partial results, economics teacher Danuse Nerudova is in third place with 13.6% of the vote and has no chance of making it to the second round.

The Czechs choose Milos Zeman’s successor

In this first round of voting, which took place on Friday and Saturday, the 8.3 million Czechs who were eligible to vote had a choice of eight candidates, including billionaire and former prime minister Andrej Babis, retired general Petr Pavel and economics teacher Danuse Nerudova.

If none of the eight candidates receives an absolute majority of votes, a second round of voting will take place on January 27-28.

The mandate of the current president, Milos Zeman, expires at the beginning of March. The 78-year-old politician, after two terms as the head of the Czech state, can no longer run for office.

The duties of the Czech president include the appointment of the prime minister and judges of the Constitutional Court, the head of state is also the supreme commander of the armed forces and appoints members of the board of directors of the central bank.

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• Andrej Babis leads the poll ahead of next week’s presidential election in the Czech Republic