Czech Election Returns Potential Majority For Anti-Babis Coalitions

The ANO movement of Prime Minister Andrej Babis and the centre-right SPOLU coalition have finished almost neck and neck in this weekend’s Czech general election, raising the prospect of an uncertain period in Czech politics. Photo: SPOLU / Twitter.

Czech Rep., Oct 10 (BD) – SPOLU finished slightly ahead in total votes, with 27.78% to ANO’s 27.14%, but due to the regional distribution of seats, ANO will end up as the biggest party in parliament with 72 seats to 71.

The way forward now depends on the preference of President Milos Zeman over who to appoint as Prime Minister to create a coalition, but Babis appears to lack natural coalition partners, while the two electoral alliances, SPOLU and the Pirates and Mayors, will have a majority of 108 seats out of 200. However, the path to the negotiation of a government may be complex, both politically and constitutionally, and may take several months.

Only four parties or alliances passed the 5% threshold. The Social Democrats and Communist Party both failed to enter the parliament for the first time since the 1989 revolution. The only other party to qualify for parliament was the far-right SPD, with 9.5%.

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