Czech Billionaire Kicks Off Talks With Far-Right After Victory
(Bloomberg) -- Czech billionaire Andrej Babis turned to forming a governing majority a day after winning a resounding election victory, seeking to reclaim the country’s premiership with support from the political margins.
The populist billionaire outperformed pre-election polls to secure 35% of the vote — the second-best result of a winning party in the Czech Republic since the fall of communism. Babis said talks were already underway with far-right and populist forces that have denounced European Union policies on migration and climate.
“We will do everything to create the government and mainly fulfill our program,” Babis told reporters in Prague on Sunday after meting with President Petr Pavel. Initial talks with the two parties were “positive,” he said, declining to detail the terms of a potential alliance.
Echoing Donald Trump, the 71-year-old former premier canvassed the eastern European nation with pledges to put Czechs first, bring an end to fiscal austerity measures and curb military aid to Ukraine. An outspoken populist with a track record of challenging the European Union on a range of issues, Babis made clear that he would spurn values advanced by the bloc in favor of a more transactional approach.
The two smaller groups with whom Babis is pursuing an agreement — the populist Motorists and the anti-migration Freedom and Direct Democracy, or SPD — would give him a path to a parliamentary majority, with the three holding a projected 108 seats in the 200-seat lower house of parliament.
Babis said Saturday he would seek to govern alone, with parliamentary support from the two factions. That could lead to difficult dealmaking — and a sharp turn to the right. The Motorists have committed to a wholesale rejection of the EU’s climate agenda, while the SPD has advocate leaving the bloc.
The billionaire has rejected holding a referendum on EU membership, having called the UK’s experience with Brexit a disaster. Speaking after the vote, he lamented what he called the over-regulation and soaring prices in the bloc, saying that “Europe is suffering — Europe is not competitive anymore.”
“We want to save Europe — we are clearly pro-European and pro-NATO,” he said at party headquarters.
Populist Flank
His comeback adds to the roster of populist leaders in the region, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. In contrast with the others, Babis has never aligned himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but has vowed to buck the EU trend on defense spending and migration.
Babis has taken aim at the flagship Czech aid initiative for Ukraine, a program to source and deliver ammunition to Kyiv. As the vote tally was wrapping up, he reiterated his position that the initiative serves only to enrich weapons producers — but said he would discuss the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and handle it “transparently.”
“We don’t like this, I have a different opinion about this — and we will certainly address this,” Babis said, as he remained evasive on whether he would end the project.
Orban celebrated the candidate’s victory, saying that “Truth has prevailed!” in the region.
“A big step for the Czech Republic, good news for Europe,” the Hungarian premier said in a statement on social platform X.
The billionaire, who amassed a fortune in agribusiness in the decades after the fall of communism, was ousted from power in 2021 after overseeing a chaotic pandemic response and becoming entangled in corruption scandals.
Babis said he wants to boost infrastructure and other investments to get the economy grow as much as 4% a year and pledged to bring CEZ AS, the country’s biggest power producer, fully into state hands.
One of Babis’s ambitions is to reassert the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary — a group known as the Visegrad Four — as a regional force, uniting the voices of 65 million citizens to have greater voice in the 27-member bloc.
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