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Central Europe
January 12, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Czech premier Andrej Babis suffers double blow in search of vote of confidence
Robert Anderson in Prague
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis suffered two severe blows on January 10 when President Milos Zeman announced that he would only reappoint him once he had proven he had majority support, and parliament postponed a confirmation vote that the billionaire populist looks certain to lose.
The surprise announcement during the presi- dent’s address to parliament before the sched- uled vote of confidence puts Zeman in a stronger position before his own re-election battle at the weekend. It also puts big pressure on Babis, who finished the runaway leader in October’s general election but has been so far unable to form a ma- jority coaltion.
Zeman has backed Babis up to now in order both to ensure the agro-chemicals tycoon did not anoint a rival presidential candidate, and to spite his former party, the Social Democrats (CSSD), which which he broke after they failed to back his first presidential bid. Previously he had pledged to automatically nominate Babis a second time if he lost the first vote of confidence and had even aired the possibility that the premier would be allowed to keep governing as a caretaker regardless of whether parliament ever backed him.
Now he has re-embraced the constitutional prec- edent that would-be premiers have to show they have majority support before they are officially nominated. If Babis cannot demonstrate he has such support, Zeman could appoint his own care- taker government, as he did in 2013-14.
Andrej Babis after his election victory.
Babis will resign as premier if he loses the confidence vote, continuing only as a caretaker; he will then need to find the extra votes before he can be re-nominated by the president. This both weakens Babis’ position and strengthens Zeman’s, and demonstrates the president’s vital importance in a political crisis, something that Zeman hopes will benefit him in the presidential election on January 12-13.
During the debate in parliament on January 10 it was obvious that Babis would only win the sup- port of his own Ano party’s 78 deputies in the 200-member chamber in the confidence vote. Even the hardline Communists withdrew their initial offer to tolerate his government by walking out, despite Babis agreeing to put forward a bill to tax compensation awarded to churches for their property seized under the communist regime.
All mainstream parties have refused to back Babis because he is under investigation for EU subsidy fraud. They have also accused Babis
of only going through the motions of conducting negotiations with them because he is relying on the president’s support to maintain his minority government.
“The circumstances of the emergence of the one- colour minority government of the Ano movement are disturbing,” tweeted Petr Fiala, leader of the rightwing Civic Democrats, which came second in the general election. “No serious talks have taken place on the creation of a transparent majority in