Czech president rejects nominee for foreign minister over ‘low qualifications’

Move from Milo Zeman threatens to further delay the inauguration of the new coalition

The Czech president, Milo Zeman, has set the stage for a constitutional tug of war after rejecting the nominee to be the country's next foreign minister on the grounds of his allegedly poor degree thesis.

In a move decried as legally baseless by many constitutional scholars, Zeman refused to accept the nomination of Jan Lipavsky, citing low qualifications" and adding that he had only completed a bachelor's degree, which he said was a lower qualification than those held by all other proposed ministers in the incoming coalition government.