Czech economist Svejnar launches presidential bid

By Petra Vodstrcilova

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Economist Jan Svejnar launched his campaign on Friday to become Czech president, challenging incumbent right-winger Vaclav Klaus in the vote due in February.

While presidents hold little day-to-day power, the election by both houses of parliament will test the strength of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and may destabilize his centre-right coalition.

Svejnar, a non-partisan professor at the University of Michigan, in the United States, has won the backing from opposition leftist Social Democrats and the junior government partner, the Green Party.

"Negotiations I've had back my view that I have support in a large part of the political specter," Svejnar, 55, told reporters.

Tapeline's right-wing Civic Democrats are backing the popular 66-year-old Klaus, founder of the Civic Democrats and a former prime minister who led the country through the first years of post-Communist transformation in the 1990s.

Svejnar emigrated from Communist Czechoslovakia when he was 17 and has mostly lived in the United States. He often criticizes Klaus's handling of the economic reforms and supports deeper European integration than the Eurosceptic Klaus.

Klaus is the favorite, although the Civic Democrats are short by 19 votes of the majority needed among the 281 lawmakers in the combined lower and upper houses of parliament.

Topolanek has been under pressure from rivals within the Civic Democrats who demand he secures Klaus's election for a second five-year term.