Eurosceptic politicians and Russian officials have warmly welcomed Andrej Babis’ victory in Czech parliamentary elections, even as the billionaire admirer of US president Donald Trump denied that he would tilt Prague away from Brussels and towards Moscow.
Babis’s Ano party – whose name means “yes” in Czech and is also an abbreviation for the “action of dissatisfied citizens” – secured 80 seats in voting held on Friday and Saturday, well clear of the ruling centre-right Spolu coalition with 52 seats.
On the campaign trail, sometimes wearing a red Maga-style baseball cap bearing the slogan “Strong Czechia”, Babis laid out a “Czechs first” manifesto.
It pledged to cut taxes, raise pensions and end Prague’s leadership of a programme to buy artillery shells for Ukraine.
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He also railed against immigration and the EU’s Green Deal to slash carbon emissions, reflecting what Ano calls the real interests of ordinary Czechs but which critics regard as cynical populism.
Babis (71) wants Ano to rule alone but with support from the only two other parties in parliament that will work with him – the far right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and the populist anti-green Motorists, who with 15 and 13 seats respectively, would give his government a working majority in the 200-seat chamber.
The tycoon vows to resist SPD calls for referendums on Czech membership of the EU and Nato, and insists he is strongly pro-western and has no desire to curry favour with the Kremlin. But Brussels and Kyiv will have noted how the loudest international praise for Ano’s victory has come from Eurosceptic nationalists and from Moscow.
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“Truth has prevailed! Andrej Babis has won the Czech parliamentary elections ... A big step for the Czech Republic, good news for Europe,” said Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, whose increasingly autocratic rule, strong ties with Russia and opposition to support for Ukraine has put him at odds with Brussels for a decade.
“All across Europe, patriotic parties are being called to power by the people, who long to reclaim their freedom and prosperity!” wrote French politician Marine Le Pen, whose far right National Rally is partnered with Ano and Orban’s Fidesz party in the European Parliament’s Patriots for Europe group.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far right deputy prime minister, wrote: “The Patriots are advancing all across Europe! Our friend Andrej Babis ... is preparing to lead a government that will focus on fighting illegal immigration, saying no to war, and stopping Brussels’ crazy policies.”
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The most striking response came from Russia, where supporters of authoritarian president Vladimir Putin and his war welcomed Babis’s win in the tone they reserve for anything they hope will weaken Europe and Ukraine – whether Trump’s vacillations and push for a rapprochement with Moscow or Orban’s obstruction of EU aid to Kyiv.
“Europe is waking up – enough of uncontrolled immigration, war fever, censorship and economic decline. The Right choice is winning across Europe,” wrote Kirill Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who is now a senior Russian finance official and key Kremlin envoy in talks with the White House.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, welcomed “another slap in the face for Euro-Atlanticists and Brussels Russophobes” and a victory for Czech “conservatives and Eurosceptics critical of the country’s policy of supporting the Ukrainian junta”.
Babis insists he is no admirer of Putin and only wants the EU – and its support for Ukraine – to work more efficiently and more favourably for Czechs.
“We are clearly pro-European and pro-Nato,” Babis said as he celebrated victory. “The EU has 27 members. Ukraine is not a member of the EU. We want, obviously, to talk about Europe – about European citizens, about energy prices, the migration pact.”
