The Czechs will elect a new head of government next Friday and Saturday. Incumbent Andrej Babis is campaigning against new revelations of the “Pandora Papers”. He is said to have acquired an estate in France via a non-transparent offshore construct.
Shortly before the parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, Prime Minister and polling favorite Andrej Babis is coming under increasing pressure. According to the so-called “Pandora Papers”, which are available to the international journalist consortium ICIJ, the multibillionaire is said to have acquired an estate in France in 2009 – via a non-transparent offshore structure with several letterbox companies. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, which was involved in the research, wrote that this purchase was “not very normal”.
Andrej Babis rejects allegations
Babis rejected the allegations that he had something to hide, but immediately decidedly back: “I didn’t steal anything, the money was taxed,” said the 67-year-old on the TV broadcaster Prima on Sunday evening. However, the founder of the populist party ANO may have imagined his final spurt in the election campaign to be different. Only a few days ago he had got help from Hungary. With his right-wing colleague Viktor Orban, Babis visited his constituency in Usti nad Labem (Aussig on the Elbe).
In the industrial city near the border with Saxony, both politicians warned of the dangers that migration brings with it. “We have to prepare for the fact that millions of people from Afghanistan will flock here,” Orban said on television. Babis praised the controversial border fence in the south of Hungary: “If this fence didn’t exist, the shortest route to social benefits in Germany would be through the Czech Republic.”
Polls indicate a tight election result
The structurally weak peripheral regions of the Czech Republic could decide the two-day election to the House of Representatives on Friday and Saturday. Recent polls see Babis as favorites – but it could be close. According to the Kantar agency, the ANO would get 24.5 percent of the vote. The conservative group Spolu (Together) with 23 percent and the alliance of pirate and mayor parties with 20.5 percent are hot on her heels.
Babis is particularly aggressive towards pirates and mayors. The 67-year-old claims that they are zealous for a “Muslim Europe” and wanted to forcibly quarter migrants in apartments and dachas. Vit Rakusan belongs to the dual leadership of the opposition alliance. He accuses Babis of conjuring up imaginary threats. “We are a country in which hardly any foreigners have lived since the Germans were expelled after the Second World War,” emphasized the chairman of the mayor’s party.
The Czech Republic will hold the EU Council Presidency in 2022
At the height of the third corona wave in spring, the opposition even took first place in the polls. Critics blamed the government’s changeable policies for the total of more than 30,000 deaths from the pandemic. Babis, on the other hand, tries to present the vaccination campaign as a success for his cabinet. Just one day before the election, he wants to have the third shot. More than half of the 10.7 million inhabitants of the Czech Republic are fully protected.
The outcome of the parliamentary elections should be closely followed in the European capitals. Because it decides who will run the country during the Czech EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2022. Babis has just publicly opposed an end to the internal combustion engine from 2035, as Brussels is calling for.
Much of this is campaign rhetoric, says political scientist Josef Mlejnek. Andrej Babis is a “pragmatic businessman with a feel for different economic interests”. In the background he could behave very differently than in front of the home audience. “I would not locate Andrej Babis on the far right of the European political scene,” says Mlejnek.
Police are investigating various offenses
The media entrepreneur and multi-billionaire is under pressure on several fronts: The police are investigating Babis for allegedly fraudulently obtaining EU subsidies. In addition, the EU Commission has suspended subsidy payments to the Agrofert company holding company he founded. The background is allegations that Babis, as a politician and entrepreneur, has a conflict of interests.
The head of the pirates, Ivan Bartos, repeatedly argued militantly: “I don’t want an oligarch to rule this country.” But on a mild autumn evening, the opposition politician shows his casual side. He unpacks his accordion in the historic old town of Prague. Bartos, who wears dreadlocks and has a doctorate in computer science, starts a song. “The music is playing and the dance begins”, it echoes in the lantern light over the Nationalallee.
See in the video: In a Telegram video, a man claims that the elections in Germany could easily be manipulated by the urns used. But that’s not true for a number of reasons. The star fact check in the video.
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