Billionaire leads populist party to Czech election victory
CZECH voters have abandoned traditional political parties in elections held over the weekend to hand the billionaire Andrej Babiš an emphatic victory.
The result followed regional trends as populist and Right-wing parties surged at the expense of the Left and pro-European Union mainstream. A surprisingly strong showing by the farRight SPD echoed recent results in German and Austrian elections.
Mr Babiš’s centrist and populist ANO took close to 30 per cent of the vote, handing it 78 of the 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
The billionaire promises to run the country like a business and clean up a “corrupt” political system.
Despite Eurosceptic comments and opposition to immigration, he considers EU membership the Czech Republic’s top priority.
However, with nine parties passing the 5 per cent threshold needed to enter the lower house of parliament, the billionaire faces tough negotiations to form a coalition.
Mainstream parties have pledged they will not serve with Mr Babiš as premier due to fraud charges laid against him earlier this month. Petr Fiala of the Eurosceptic centre-Right ODS, which came second with 11 per cent of the vote, stressed his party will honour that promise. Many worry that stance could drive Mr Babiš to team up with other populist parties.
The anti-EU and Islam party SPD took around 11 per cent of votes, matching the 22 seats won by the Pirates, who attracted liberals unhappy with traditional parties. SPD’s half-Japanese leader Tomio Okamura said that a ref- erendum on “Czexit” will be his key demand in any coalition talks.
Mr Babiš has rejected forming a government with the SPD, but has left a back door open to a minority government with support from either the extreme Right or Left.
However, the Left was decimated, and the communist KSČM recorded its worst ever result at just under 8 per cent.
It did still beat the centre-left Social Democrats (ČSSD), leader of the outgoing coalition that includes ANO.
The ANO’s deputy chairman said the ČSSD, which slumped to 7 per cent despite a booming economy, is likely to be first on the list of potential partners.