Facing a divisive election early next month, Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Petr Fiala warned supporters on Wednesday that his main opponent Andrej Babis‘s willingness to make deals with extremist parties threatens both the country’s democracy and its position in Europe.
Fiala’s SPOLU (Together) centre-right coalition is pitted against the ANO party of billionaire Andrej Babis, a Eurosceptic ally of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in an uphill struggle to win national parliamentary elections slated for 3-4 October.
The latest opinion polls show the Babis-led ANO in the lead, winning the most votes with more than 30%, a 10 point advantage over SPOLU. However, since as many as seven parties are likely to exceed the 5% threshold required to secure a parliamentary seat, it is almost certain the next government will be a coalition.
Addressing a rally in Prague’s Peace Square, Fiala cautioned that if Babis leans towards extremists on the far right or far left for support, Czech Republic’s roots in Europe could be eroded.
“People are worried over what happens if populists and extremists win,” he said. “For the first time since 1989, I am worried as well,” he said, a reference to the year of the “Velvet Revolution”, when then-Czechoslovakia rejected Communist rule.
Launched as a pro-European, centrist liberal movement in 2011, Babis later turned ANO into an anti-Brussels, anti-immigration group, joining Orbán and other far-right European parties to form the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament.
