The Czech Republic’s second richest man, Andrej Babiš, has been sworn in as the country’s new prime minister, pledging a fight against people smugglers whom he blamed for the numbers of “illegal” migrants going to Europe.

The party of Babiš, called Action for Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), emerged as easily the biggest grouping in October’s parliamentary election, in which immigration and relations with the EU were key issues.

“Our position on migration is clear,” Babiš said after being appointed premier by the Czech president, Miloš Zeman, at Prague’s historic ninth century castle. “Our country should be more active and propose to the member states and the European commission a solution to illegal migration [sic]. And that solution is a fight against human traffickers.”

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The focus on what was termed illegal migration was an acknowledgment of the populist appeal that underpinned Babis’ electoral support at the expense of more mainstream parties. His election campaign was marked by vows to resist the EU’s proposed quota system to distribute refugees and other migrants more fairly throughout member states. It chimes with rising anti-Islamic sentiment in the Czech Republic, which has a tiny Muslim population.

Babiš, whose massive Agrofert conglomerate encompasses about 230 companies dealing with fertilisers, food and media, also won popular support for his complaints about corruption and promises to run the country like a business. His statements tapped into popular discontent belying the Czech Republic’s status as one of Europe’s boom economies, with unemployment low and wages rising.

His path to forming a stable government is complicated by the refusal of most other parties, including the outgoing Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Civic Democrats, to enter a coalition led by him. They have all cited criminal charges hovering over him – arising from €2m (£1.8m) in EU subsidies allegedly obtained by his hotel and conference complex in rural Bohemia – which critics say exposes his anti-corruption credentials as bogus.

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Babiš, who currently has parliamentary immunity against the charges, says he will form a minority government. But with ANO holding only 78 of the 200 seats in the chamber of deputies, his cabinet, which is expected to be sworn in next week, still needs to win a parliamentary vote of confidence within 30 days.

Only the Communist party, which ruled the former Czechoslovakia until its fall from power in the 1989 Velvet Revolution, has said it will support a Babiš-led minority government, but its 15 seats would still be insufficient to win a confidence vote. That could leave ANO reliant on the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy party.

Zeman, who himself faces a tough presidential re-election fight in a month’s time, has said he will re-appoint Babiš as prime minister even if he loses a confidence vote, giving him another chance to win majority parliamentary support.

The political machinations coincide with the approaching 25th anniversary of the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia, on 1 January 1993, into two separate states, Slovakia, where Babiš was born and raised, and the Czech Republic.