Babiš’s ANO took largest share of vote in election but may struggle to find coalition partners as leader faces fraud allegations

One of central Europe’s richest men will begin the tricky task of building a ruling coalition after convincing Czech voters in weekend elections that he can stem immigration, fight corruption and banish the establishment from power.



Andrej Babiš, a tycoon turned populist politician who has been compared to Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi, confirmed on Monday that the Czech president would ask him next week to begin forming the next government.

Babiš led his new party ANO – “ano” is Czech for “yes” – to a resounding poll victory, winning almost 30% of the vote.

The election ended a quarter of a century of political dominance by the traditional parties of the Czech mainstream, with the Social and Christian Democrats scoring just 7% and 6% respectively.

Voters largely turned their backs on liberal pro-European parties, with the centre-right Civic Democrats winning 11% of the vote, the direct democracy advocates of the Pirate party 10.6% and the far-right, anti–EU SPD 10.8%.

“We’ll do our utmost to persuade any other party to join us,” Babiš said on Monday. Both the mainstream centre-right and centre-left parties, however, have already ruled themselves out of any coalition, and not just because his abrasive style and confrontational policies have alienated many of their leading members.

Many are reluctant to ally themselves with a self-styled anti-corruption campaigner who is himself mired in allegations of fraud. There are also questions about whether Babiš would enjoy immunity from prosecution if he were able to form a government.



Babiš is a bundle of contradictions: a self-proclaimed anti-establishment figure who is a former finance minister, billionaire and media mogul and an anti-corruption campaigner who this month was charged with a €2m (£1.8m) fraud. Babiš denies wrongdoing and has dismissed the case as politically motivated.

While Babiš presents himself as a self-made man, the source of his riches is rooted in the days that followed the country’s 1989 Velvet Revolution and the subsequent breakup of Czechoslovakia.

It was during this chaotic period that Babiš wrested control of a previously state-owned conglomerate through the most opaque of refinancing deals. His role within the pre-revolutionary state is also unclear: he firmly denies allegations that he was close to the StB, the Communist-era secret police. Despite his best efforts, however – including multiple courtroom battles – the allegations of collaboration will not go away.

What is clear is that Babiš has struck a powerful chord with many Czech voters, particularly in rural areas where people warm to his scepticism about the power of Brussels and his no-nonsense style.

Many were also impressed by his determination, when finance minister, to get to grips with the national debt, crack down on tax evaders and kickstart much-needed infrastructure projects.

Unusually for such a populist politician, his victory comes not at a time of economic downturn in the Czech economy but at a moment when the country of 10.6 million people is enjoying strong growth, robust wage increases and low levels of unemployment.

In recent years many Czechs have been far from confident in their country’s economic stability, however, and have come to resent immigration and what they see as cronyism in government and the legal system.



Babiš, who is estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $4bn (£3bn), founded ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) in 2012, saying it was opposed to immigration and committed to eradicating systemic corruption in Czech public life. He seems to regard the party as being inseparable from himself, telling one interviewer: “The party is connected to my person. The party is me.”

One of ANO’s sources of funding has been donations from subsidiaries of Agrofert, an enormous agriculture, foods and chemical conglomerate controlled by Babiš. According to research conducted by a Czech NGO, between 2012 and 2016 more than a dozen Agrofert subsidiaries – which had drawn almost 1.4bn Czech koruna (£50m) in EU subsidies between them – donated about 31m koruna to ANO.

A year after launching ANO– and months before the 2013 parliamentary election – Babiš bought the media group Mafra, the publisher of two of the country’s best selling and most influential newspapers, MF Dnes and Lidové Noviny.

Resignations of senior journalists soon followed, and Babiš was scorned in some Prague circles as Babišconi, a reference to the scandal-tainted former Italian prime minister Berlusconi.

He moved to consolidate his holdings in Czech media, and now owns a major internet news portal and radio and television channels, all of which appear reluctant to criticise him. Babiš insists he never meddles in editorial affairs.

At parliamentary elections that followed, Babiš’ party won 19% of the vote and entered into a coalition government.



Babiš was appointed finance minister and first deputy prime minister, posts that he held until May this year when he was sacked after a long-running coalition dispute over suspicions that he had evaded taxes when buying bonds from Agrofert – an allegation he denies.

Now he has been re-elected, Babiš’ parliamentary immunity will be restored and a second vote would be required in order to remove it once more.

Whether this will happen – and what will happen next in the Czech Republic’s journey from the land of the Velvet Revolution to a home for populist and confrontational politics – may depend on the outcome of the protracted negotiations to form a coalition.

The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, confirmed on Monday he would name Babiš as the next prime minister but suggested the formal appointment would happen later. The first session of the new parliament would be called after the maximum 30 days allowed by the constitution, to provide time for coalition talks, he said.