Every return of populists to power, so far, has proven disastrous for a country whose citizens were stupid enough to bring the same person to power twice, of their own free will. Donald Trump, for example. During his first term, he did serious damage, in the meantime he tried a coup d'état, but that was not enough for the Americans who voted for him the first time, so they provided him with a new mandate to complete what, inexperienced as he was, he only started nine years ago: to destroy the country. (Democracies, in fact, have a built-in, paradoxical mechanism of self-destruction: the democratic possibility to, democratically, destroy itself. How? By voting for Trump or Vučić in free and fair elections, after which there is no more freedom or honesty.) Viktor Orbán is, of course, a prominent figure in that cheerful populist-robbery society, but in his first term he was dressed in a liberal suit. Brother Jaroslav Kaczynski is already a better example of the kind of damage a populist-recidivist can do, and here, the presidential mandate in Poland, a few months ago, was won by Karol Nawrocki, whose political role model is Donald Trump.
IN ALLIANCE WITH FASCISTS
The old and, by all accounts, the new Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babis, in that respect, one would say, is somewhat different. In the last parliamentary elections, Babiš's populist ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) won the most votes (34,51%), but that, of course, as in Czech Republic has been happening for decades, it is not enough to form an independent government, and the possibilities for a minority government or a coalition with smaller right-wing parties have opened up. The right-wing SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) of Tomi Okamura, whose father is Japanese, plays (quite logically) the fiercest anti-immigrant card and won 7,78 percent of the vote, and the Motoristi, a bizarre fringe group whose unofficial leader Filip Turek was cut off for pro-Nazi posts on social networks (and by the way is also a collector of Nazi artifacts, in other words, an undisguised fascist), won 6,77 percent of votes. They are called motorists because they are against the abolition of internal combustion engines, which, as we can see, is an extremely complex political program and proof that today, unfortunately, any bizarreness can pass. These two parties, precisely because of their extreme views, are not ideal partners for Babis, but there is a high probability that Babnis will form a new government with them. On the other side are SPOLU (23,36 percent of votes), STAN (11,23) and Pirates (8,27), thus, parties mostly from the old Czech political establishment that made up the outgoing government.
photo: apVOTED FOR THE POPULIST: The Electoral Body of the Czech Republic
ON YOUR OWN
Andrej Babiš is the first dual citizen to hold the post of Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He was born in Bratislava on September 2, 1954, he is Slovak by nationality, he came from a family of apparatchiks who were the chief negotiators of the Czechoslovakian Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia for the GATT agreement. He grew up partly in Switzerland (with a father who was a trade representative), and he made his fortune in a fairly common transitional way, on the edge of the law. He started as a representative of Slovakian "Petrimex", a state-owned company similar to "Genex" or "Rudnap" in our region. When Czechoslovakia fell apart, he convinced the management of "Petrimex" to form "Agrofert" in the Czech Republic, he then recapitalized the company with the help of, as he says, "friends from Switzerland" (of course, unnamed to this day), and thus took over "Agrofert". "Petrimex" sued him, but in vain. Babis became his own on his own.
He served as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 2017 to 2021. He founded the ANO movement in 2011 on all known populist principles, that is, with many (difficult to achieve) promises that obviously sounded good to his voters. He was the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from 2014 to 2017. He is the second richest man in the Czech Republic, with an estimated net worth of 4,04 million euros (according to Bloomberg records). He is the owner of "Agrofert Group", which operates on the territory of the European Union and China, as well as the two largest Czech newspapers, Mladá fronta DNES and Lidové noviny. In this last segment - the control of media channels - he reminds of Berlusconi.
It goes without saying that such a person almost necessarily has affairs. The "Slovak Institute of National Memory" proved that Babiš was an informant of the infamous secret service "StB", under the code name Bureš. He did not play a significant role, but the court proved that his claims that he accidentally fell into the service's records were unfounded. It's not by chance, on the contrary. He worked hard on it.
He is currently involved in the very problematic "Rodino gnezdo" affair. Namely, he separated from his "Agrofert" concern a farm with a recreational facility so that he could apply for subsidies given by the European Union. He received subsidies, but now he is being prosecuted by the Czech state and the EU. He was acquitted in one trial in the Czech Republic, but the case was recently reopened. Theoretically, therefore, he can be convicted. It's a classic sleight of hand - Rodini gnezdo was spun off from the conglomerate so it could bid for European support for small and medium-sized businesses - proving he was greedy enough to look stupid. It goes without saying that all of this is a pittance compared to the entire "Agrofert" concern, but at the time when it all started, he was not the prime minister and he could hardly have guessed how much all of this could cost him politically.
However, the biggest problem that critics see is that Babis did not sufficiently (and unambiguously) distance himself from the management of "Agrofert". The departure from the leading position in the company while retaining full ownership of the fourth largest company in the Czech Republic clearly did not seem convincing to critics. It is, roughly, like when Vučić retires from the post of party president. This time Babis promises to consult with President Petr Pavel and to act according to the agreement. Nevertheless, it is almost certain that "Agrofert", a monstrously large form, and the state will continue their "cooperation", to the satisfaction of Babis. Whether it is for the benefit of the state is another matter, but as Babiš is now managing the state, the assumption is that Babiš (state) and Babiš (controversial businessman) will come to an agreement to their mutual satisfaction.
SYSTEM AND DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Babiš's previous mandate passed well in the shadow of covid and, as critics say, of a chaotic approach to the pandemic. He entered into a coalition with the unreformed communists (the first time someone accepted them in a coalition) and the extremist SPD. He was dogged by accusations of a conflict of interest - he was still the sole owner of Agrofert despite formally stepping down from the leadership position - and on two occasions mass protests of 250,000 people each were organized against his rule in Prague. It is positive that he handed over power peacefully, just as he accepted defeat in the later presidential elections. Few doubt that it will be the same this time (when it comes to a political end), which is a welcome circumstance in a world ruled by pharaohs like Putin, Erdogan, Orban, Vučić, and now Trump, who have no idea how to calmly get off the backs of the people they have ridden.
In the Czech political system, the mandate for the composition of the government is proposed by the president and voted by the bicameral parliament. President Petr Pavel, a former senior NATO official who defeated Babis in the presidential race, has veto power over individual ministers. On the other hand, the senate is important insofar as it is not possible to change the constitution without the senate, and this body is full of people who do not like Babis in the least. Therefore, any rewriting of electoral or other system laws is practically not possible.
WITHOUT IDEOLOGY
On the ideological level, it could be said that Babis is a pure opportunist, which means that ideology does not exist with him. Unlike, say, Trump who also has no ideology, he is not surrounded by guys like Peter Thiel, David Vance, Steve Bannon and other - let's put it that way - problematic guys. To that extent, it is necessary to take seriously the interesting thesis that can be heard in Czech analytical circles, namely, that Babis's membership in Orbán's grouping in the European Parliament is interpreted as a populist move with the intention of stealing votes from the SPD and the Motorists, in which, after all, he absolutely succeeded. In other words, he is riding on the global trend against the establishment in the manner of the contemporary right (AfD in Germany, for example), but if it is more profitable, he will easily return to his old flock, the Christian Democratic group European People's Party, where, after all, Ursula von der Leyen is, like all mainstream European conservatives.
The balance of political forces in the Czech Republic is such that, for decades, no party or movement has been able to obtain a simple majority in the parliament. This time, however, Babis succeeded in mobilizing disaffected voters in the province. According to expectations, the previous ruling coalition achieved an excellent result in the big cities of Prague and Brno. The problem for her, however, was the higher voter turnout in the province, where, according to the analysis of the left-wing portal Alarm, the turnout was higher by a full 7 percent, which gave ANO the upper hand. Given his ideological choice, Alarm interprets that phenomenon as a rational response of the neglected periphery, where wages have even decreased (against wage growth in big cities). In this way, the official discourse and the local reality found themselves at odds, and the official speech about the general betterment in the last few years was simply replaced by a reality that shows something else. Of course, it is a big question how much Babis will pay attention to the province, but, unlike in Serbia, in four years, in free and fair elections, the citizens will be able to assess the extent to which Babis fulfilled his pre-election promises.
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