Lubomír Zaorálek

Lubomír Zaorálek (born 6 September 1956) is a Czech politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka from 2014 to 2017, and Minister of Culture under Prime Minister Andrej Babiš from 2019 to 2021. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) from 1996 to 2021, and was the election leader for the Social Democratic Party in the 2017 election, when their vote share dropped to 7%.

Early life He was born on 6 September 1956 in Ostrava, and graduated from Jan Evangelista Purkyně University (today Masaryk University) in Brno in 1982. He worked as a dramaturge at Czechoslovak Television in Ostrava.

Political career During the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 he participated in Civic Forum.

Zaorálek was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1996 as a member of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), becoming the party's vice chairman in 2009. From 2002 to 2006, he was the President of the Chamber of Deputies.

He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2017 in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, and then as Minister of Culture in the Cabiner of Prime Minister Andrej Babis from 2019 to 2021. He lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies when ČSSD failed to qualify to enter parliament at the 2021 general election.