A Czech billionaire facing criminal charges for fraud is poised to win parliamentary elections this weekend, eclipsing traditional political parties on a pledge to run the state like a business, fight Muslim immigration and defy deeper integration with the EU.
Andrej Babis, who as the second-richest Czech has drawn comparisons to US President Donald Trump and former Italian prime minster Silvio Berlusconi, has a wide lead in opinion polls as two days of voting started yesterday.
With a chemical, food and media empire employing 34,000 people in 18 countries, the Slovak-born businessman solidified his popularity in the more than three years that he served as Czech minister of finance before he was fired by his coalition partner, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka.
Photo: Reuters
Taking credit for the EU’s lowest unemployment, one of its fastest rates of economic growth, and a balanced budget, Babis has portrayed himself as a competent manager struggling against traditional parties he brands as inept and corrupt.
While that has lifted his ANO 2011 party, his attacks against Muslim immigration and criticism of the EU have helped fuel the rise of anti-establishment political forces similar to Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland and Austria’s Freedom Party. It is also raised concern that he might follow the governments of Poland and Hungary, which have clashed with Brussels over democratic values.
“He’s presenting himself as the only one who can bring order,” said Josef Mlejnek, a political scientist at Charles University in Prague. “Some voters are convinced he’ll be a good manager. People also believe that, because he’s a billionaire, he has enough and doesn’t have to steal.”
Voting in the country of 10.6 million people started at 2pm yesterday.
In May, Sobotka dismissed Babis in a conflict over his past business dealings.
Sobotka’s Social Democrats later teamed up with the opposition to strip Babis of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution to allow investigation into fraud allegations.
Police have since charged Babis, 63, in the case of a 50 million Czech koruna (US$2.3 million) EU subsidy transferred to his Stork Nest recreation complex.
Babis denies wrongdoing and said the allegations are an attempt to sideline him from politics.
Despite the allegations, he is held on to support siphoned from both the Social Democrats and other traditional parties.
He has boasted of streamlining government operations and, via a law requiring retailers to link their cash registers to the Czech Ministry of Finance, boosting budget revenue and cracking down on tax evasion.
At the same time, he has railed against EU “meddling,” a stance that resonates with voters in the bloc’s most euroskeptic member.
“I like order and Babis put order into state finances,” Mirka Votrubova, a pensioner, said as she browsed shops in a mall in Prague. “It’s too bad they didn’t let him finish his term at the finance ministry.”
The billionaire has also boasted about reducing state debt and selling state bonds with negative yields during his stint at the finance ministry, which coincided with a period of unprecedented monetary stimulus.
The yield on the 10-year government bond was at 1.57 percent yesterday, more than tripling since the start of the year after the central bank began raising interest rates.
Regardless of the government’s economic achievements, polls have shown the emergence of protest parties including the anti-immigrant Freedom and Direct Democracy, known as SPD, and the Pirate party.
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