Babis Agrees Czech Coalition Deal but Doubts and Questions Remain

After a week of intense negotiations and backroom deals, the leader of the victorious ANO party, Andrej Babis, unveiled over the weekend more details about what his future Czech government could look like. Yet while Babis tries to push through the post-election talks in the hope of being nominated prime minister as quickly as possible, a more cautious President Petr Pavel – who holds the constitutional power to appoint a new prime minister – is evidently in no rush to do so. He announced on Friday the government would have to wait until the opening of the first session of the newly elected Chamber of Deputies on November 3. Replacing the current four-party, centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Babis’s ANO is set to govern with the far-right, pro-Russian Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and the ultra-conservative Motorist movement. According to the tentative agreement reached by the three parties last week, ANO will be in charge with Babis as prime minister and with about half of the government ministries, including finance, justice, interior, education, healthcare and industry. SPD leader Tomio Okamura is expected to become speaker of the house and should nominate non-partisan experts to head the ministries of defence, agriculture and transport, while the Motorists hope to be in charge of foreign affairs, culture and the environment, as well as a new ministry dedicated to sports, prevention and health. There are, however, many hurdles to overcome. Behind-the-scenes reporting suggests that negotiations have turned more delicate and intricate than expected for Babis, whose landslide win at the ballot box 10 days ago can only be translated into government with the support of the much smaller yet essential SPD and Motorists, as all the other parliamentary parties have said they would not support an ANO government. Babis has already publicly admonished both the putative coalition parties for sharing too much information with the press during the negotiations, while he must also count on a more proactive president than many commentators had expected. Even before the elections, Pavel had warned that he would not appoint any minister who questions Czechia’s place within the EU and NATO. Last week, he added more red lines, including “support for the institutions of a democratic state and the independence of public service media”. The president’s talks with the anti-EU, anti-NATO nominees of SPD are expected to be particularly tough and thorough. Although programmatically less problematic, the “anti-woke”, anti-Green Deal Motorists have already faced pushback on some of their hopeful nominees. Dozens of environmental NGOs and experts have criticised plans to hand the Environment Ministry to Motorist leader Petr Macinka or any other member of the party, while their potential leadership over the Culture Ministry also raised some eyebrows. Meanwhile, long slated to become foreign minister, Motorist figurehead and MEP Filip Turek found himself mired in controversy over the weekend after Denik N uncovered old social media posts littered with racist, xenophobic, fascist-supporting and homophobic language. “The information is serious, and I will definitely deal with it,” Babis said on Saturday, adding that he will meet with both Turek and Macinka on Monday and further suggesting that the Motorists should, like the SPD, ideally nominate non-party members to government positions – an option Macinka dismissed out of hand. Some commentators had expected post-election negotiations to take months. And although a coalition between ANO, SPD and the Motorists has a clear majority in parliament, power dynamics between the three are not as straightforward as they seem, and talks are expected to continue for several weeks more.