Talks drag after Czech vote

Potential coalition partners reject leader facing fraud counts

Czech billionaire and leader of ANO 2011 political movement Andrej Babis arrives to address the media Saturday after most of the votes were counted in the parliamentary elections in Prague, Czech Republic.
Czech billionaire and leader of ANO 2011 political movement Andrej Babis arrives to address the media Saturday after most of the votes were counted in the parliamentary elections in Prague, Czech Republic.

PRAGUE -- Czech billionaire Andrej Babis hit his first obstacle to forming a new Cabinet after dominating the country's parliamentary elections, with potential coalition partners rejecting joining him in government as long as he's facing charges of criminal fraud.

After promising to run the state like a business, fight Muslim immigration and oppose deeper integration with the European Union, Babis's ANO party won 29.6 percent of ballots, the Statistics Office said on Saturday, citing almost 100 percent of districts counted. The euroskeptic Civic Democrats were second with 11.3 percent, followed by two anti-establishment parties. Other Czech traditional political forces suffered big losses.

As the second-richest Czech, Babis has drawn comparisons to President Donald Trump and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He took credit for one of the fastest economic expansions in the EU and the bloc's lowest unemployment, but his opponents have accused him of conflicts of interest tied to his businesses. A month before the vote, he was charged with fraud. He has rejected the allegations, but his current coalition partners, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, rejected joining him in power as long as the case remains open.

"He may not reach an agreement in the first round of talks, but later some of the parties may reconsider their stances," said Pavel Saradin, a professor of political science at Masaryk University in Brno. "It depends on what he offers them in exchange for letting him stay in the government and keep his immunity."

During the campaign, ANO criticized the EU for overreach and vowed to keep Muslim refugees out of what has been one of the least affected countries in Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II.

The stance helped shatter the middle ground of Czech politics, with traditional forces like the Social Democrats, which leads the outgoing government, plunging to a fifth-place finish. The Pirate Party, which supports digital freedom and streamlining the state through technology, was third with 10.8 percent and the anti-Muslim Freedom and Direct Democracy was close behind with 10.7 percent. It was the first time either won seats in the lower house.

In a news conference in which he declared victory, Babis said he invited leaders of all remaining eight parliamentary parties for talks. He said he wanted to convene Parliament as soon as possible and repeated that there was no proof to support the fraud charge and called for its end.

"I hope that our government will be set up quickly," Babis said. "I've invited all for talks with us. I hope they want to negotiate."

ANO Deputy Chairman Jaroslav Faltynek said he would propose first approaching current ruling partners, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, which won 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively. President Milos Zeman has said he will meet with all party leaders after Saturday and give the coalition-forming mandate to the ballot's winner.

Fired from the finance minister's post in May, Babis, 63, has boasted of streamlining government operations and pushing through a law requiring retailers to link cash registers to the Finance Ministry to boost budget revenue and crack down on tax evasion. At the same time, he has railed against "meddling" from Brussels and refuses deeper economic integration with the EU, a stance that resonated with voters in the bloc's most euroskeptic member.

Parliament voted to strip Babis, who's worth an estimated $4 billion, of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution last month. Police then charged him in the case of $2.3 million in EU subsidies transferred to his Stork Nest recreation complex.

Information for this article was contributed by Krystof Chamonikolas and Ladka Bauerova of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 10/22/2017

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