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Central Europe
May 12, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Czechs protest against president's alliance with billionaire minister
bne IntelliNews
An estimated 30,000 demonstrated in Prague on May 10 against the apparent efforts of President Milos Zeman and Finance Minister Andrej Babis to use the country's coalition crisis to consolidate their power.
Protesters are angry that the populist head of state and the leader of the "centrist-populist" Ano party appear to be working in tandem and ignor- ing the constitution to ensure that Babis will be the next prime minister and Zeman will be re- elected president.
Having pulled an offer early in the month to make the government resign as Zeman sought to blind- side him, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka of the coalition leading CSSD is now pushing to sack Babis, something the president has so far refused to do. The PM’s machinations are a bid to revive his party’s flagging support ahead of elections that are currently scheduled for October.
The wily Zeman and Babis are still likely to oc- cupy the top jobs in the country following par- liamentary and presidential elections over the next eight months. However, the protests across the country on May 10 suggest they may need
to change tactics. Zeman risks sparking a full blown constitutional crisis should he continue to refuse to sack Babis.
While the crowds in Prague were by far the big- gest, demonstrations were held in major cities across the country. Referencing accusations that Zeman and Babis are hijacking democracy, pro- testors on Prague’s Wenceslas Square jangled
President Milos Zeman has refused to sack Finance Minister Andrej Babis.
their keys, as they famously did in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution that saw the end of the commu- nist regime.
Opposition is also rising in parliament. All the coalition parties insist that they are against snap elections, but the ongoing tussle risks a slide in that direction.
A sizable section of the CSSD-controlled Senate has said it will launch a lawsuit against the presi- dent should he refuse to dismiss Babis, as most opinion suggests he is duty bound to do under the constitution since Sobotka requested the move on May 5. The president says firing the finance minis- ter would break the coalition agreement between the CSSD, Ano and the junior partner KDU-CSL.
Zeman has sought to delay any decision on the crisis until he returns from a planned week-long trip to China on May 18.
While the conventional wisdom remains that Babis remains set for the PM’s chair following the next election – Ano enjoying 30% or more of voter support for some time in the polls, compared with the CSSD’s 14% – the protest could spark some fresh life into the race. Still, Babis and Zeman remain the second and first most popular political figures in the country, respectively.
Further than that, their support is centred out- side the major cities. Adopting tactics followed
by other populists around the globe, Zeman even consciously baits the capital to raise his popularity across the rest of the country.