Page 11 - bne_newspaper_September_08_2017

Central Europe
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 11
Czech MPs lift election favourite Babis’s immunity
bne IntelliNews
Police are now free to bring fraud charges against populist politician Andrej Babis — the billionaire that polls show is still the favourite to become Czechia’s next prime minister in the upcoming October election — after a September 6 123-to- four vote in parliament to withdraw his immunity from prosecution.
Prior to the overwhelming vote to in this instance lift the protection from criminal charges granted to an MP, Babis, the 63-year-old founder of the ANO movement, declared to lawmakers in the lower house: "You will not silence me, intimidate me, stop me. And you will not get rid of me." Ba- bis, who insists the controversy is a pre-election ploy driven by his political and business enemies, even ended up backing the motion himself, say- ing: "So, give me up. I ask you to lift my immunity so that the truth can be revealed."
Ex-finance minister Babis’s role in an alleged €2mn fraud is under police scrutiny, as is that
of ANO deputy leader Jaroslav Faltynek, whose immunity was also lifted by the vote. EU anti- fraud office OLAF has also been investigating
the claimed corruption in which a farm and conference centre near Prague known as Stork’s Nest received an EU subsidy in 2008 after its ownership was transferred from the Babis-owned Agrofert conglomerate to Babis family members. The subsidy was meant for a small or medium sized business. If Stork’s Nest had remained part of Agrofert, it would not have been eligible to receive it. Some time after the aid was awarded, Agrofert retook ownership of the business.
Babis, seen with his wife Monika Babisova, faces an interesting next six weeks, campaigning to become PM on an anti-corruption platform while police look into graft allegations made against him.
The big question now of course is by how much the affair might dent Babis and ANO’s support among voters in the run-up to the October 20-21 elec- tion. So far, a winning percentage seem to have remained blasé about Babis’s financial affairs. The latest opinion polls show centrist ANO, currently part of a grand coalition in the CSSD-led govern- ment, dominating the political scene with a double- digit lead among likely voters. But no major surveys have been conducted since the police requested the removal of Babis’s immunity on August 10.
Slovak-born Babis, who earlier this year was fired as finance minister over unexplained business dealings and is frequently attacked by his adver- saries for having authoritarian instincts, may be faced with having to try and put together a rul-
ing coalition with parties who presently say they could not work with a prime minister charged with a crime. Of course, if he wins re-election as an MP, Babis will regain his immunity and the police would have to again ask parliament to lift it.
Sometimes dubbed the ‘Czech Berlusconi’, the agro-chemicals entrepreneur-turned-politician on September 2 launched his ANO party’s general election campaign platform with an emphasis
on fighting entrenched corruption. His party has pledged to cleanse politics of graft but critics say Babis, whose ANO conglomerate encompasses some 250 companies and is the biggest Czech private employer with more than 30,000 staff, could never have got rich in the way he did in the first place if the environment he now says he will dismantle had not existed.