Incumbent Zeman leads Czech presidential vote: partial results

Czech President Milos Zeman and his wife Ivana are seen as they cast their votes during the country's direct presidential election at a polling station in Prague, the Czech Republic January 12, 2018. REUTERS/David W Cerny

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Incumbent Milos Zeman led the first round of the Czech Republic's presidential election on Saturday with 44.2 percent of the vote, results from 10.6 percent of voting districts showed.

The runner up was Jiri Drahos, a pro-Western academic, with 24.2 percent, far ahead of the remaining seven contenders.

Unless the winner takes more than 50 percent in the first round, the two highest-scoring candidates will go head to head in a run-off planned for January 26-27.

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Robert Muller; Editing by Edmund Blair)