Czech election: Billionaire Babiš claims victory and looks to fringe parties for support
Andrej Babiš has declared victory in the Czech Republic’s parliamentary vote and signaled he will try to govern with outside backing from smaller parties on the political margins.
With almost all ballots counted, his ANO movement secured about 34.7% of the vote, well ahead of Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s centre-right Spolu (Together) alliance on roughly 23.2%. Mr Fiala congratulated his rival and conceded.
Early projections suggest ANO will take around 80 of the 200 seats in the lower house, leaving Mr Babiš short of a majority and in search of parliamentary partners. He said he would talk to two newcomers to the king-maker role: the anti-EU, anti-NATO Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), polling near 7.8%, and the pro-motorist party that campaigned against the EU’s green agenda and looks set to clear the 5% threshold.
President Petr Pavel, who must nominate a prime minister, is expected to start consultations with party leaders on Sunday.
Mr Babiš told reporters he wants to form a one-party cabinet, propped up by confidence-and-supply deals if needed. The two potential allies have already indicated they are open to talks about supporting a minority ANO government to oust Mr Fiala.
“It’s the pinnacle of my political career!” he said, adding that he and his team would now work to make the Czech Republic “the best place to live in the European Union”.
Even with such support, coalition arithmetic will be tight. The Mayors and Independents (STAN) hovered near 11% and the Pirate Party around 9%, while the far-left Stačilo! looked likely to fall short of the threshold. Turnout was estimated at 68% (the highest since 1998), reflecting the high stakes after a bruising campaign over living costs, the pace of decarbonisation and the country’s role in aiding Ukraine.
A return to power for Mr Babiš would add momentum to the EU’s populist flank, where he has aligned himself with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and other sceptics of Brussels’ climate and migration policies. He has vowed to scrap the “Czech initiative” that has assembled millions of artillery shells for Kyiv using donor funding, arguing that any further support for Ukraine should be channelled through NATO or the EU. ANO has at times abstained on European resolutions backing Kyiv and Mr Babiš has previously opposed Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.
He rejects the suggestion that Prague would drift from the Western mainstream, insisting ANO is “pro-European and pro-NATO”. But diplomats in Brussels and some Czech officials warn policy frictions could sharpen, particularly over energy, climate targets and defence spending.
Your problem is you just copy lies from Czech journalists. I spoke with Trump five times! I was in the Pentagon. I was in the FBI. I talked to the head of the CIA. I have been prime minister. We have been in government before. And we had excellent results.
Mr Babiš, a billionaire agribusiness and media tycoon who governed from 2017 to 2021 and lost a presidential race in 2023 to former NATO general Petr Pavel, returns to office-seeking under legal scrutiny. A long-running case involving EU subsidies for a conference centre linked to his Agrofert group is back before the courts after a higher court overturned his earlier acquittal. He denies wrongdoing and says the case is politically driven.
Any renewed premiership would again raise conflict-of-interest questions, given his control over a sprawling chemicals-to-food empire placed in trust during his last term. The constitution gives President Pavel discretion in naming a prime minister; few expect him to block the leader of the largest party, but the legal backdrop could complicate the path to a stable government.
Final results will be certified in the coming days. Mail-in voting, introduced for this election, may slow formal confirmation, but the broad picture is unlikely to change.
If ANO cannot secure reliable support from the SPD and the motorists’ party, Mr Babiš would face a thornier route, either courting defectors from the centre or risking repeated confidence votes. For now, the momentum sits with him: a decisive win, a fragmented opposition and a president preparing to open the door. Whether that yields a durable government, and how far it shifts Czech policy at home and in Europe, will be decided at the coalition table.
By I. Constantin
