Czech populist grandmother’s eyes in the election but may need help from extremes

The Czechs go to the ballot box on Friday and Saturday, facing a worsening security situation in Europe and fears of Russian intervention.

The populist billionaire Andrei Babis, 71, is set to head the next government, replacing the highly pro-western, pro-Ukraine coalition.

But he will probably need allies for the extremes of Czech politics – and their price will not be cheap.

“We will never drag the Czech Republic to the east. I can absolutely exclude this,” Babis told a crowd of mostly supporters of the elderly gathered around a scene in the former steel city of Kladen, just off Prague.

“We were not the ones who sat with Putin – we were the ones who kicked out Russian diplomats!” He continued, citing measures taken in his first term after revealing that the military intelligence of the Russia GRU had blown up a dump for Czech ammunition in 2014.

A row of gray heads nodded when the former Prime Minister warmed up to his subject.

“And never – I never repeat, we will never think about leaving the European Union. See what happened to the UK! And they are nuclear energy. They have gas, oil, fishing industry. They are friends with Trump,” he added.

Andrei Babis himself is also friends with US President Donald Trump.

Many supporters were dressed in Babis’s red baseball cap, decorated with the words “Strong Czech Republic” – highly inspired by the movement of Trump’s Maga.

The problem with Babis – and soon may become a problem for NATO and the EU – is that its Ano party is unlikely to win a common majority.

Instead, he will probably have to form alliances with smaller parties along the border of Czech politics.

The polls and public statements of public opinion suggest that its choice of potential allies will be limited to the ultra -nationalist SPD, motorists against green deals and enough! -What are the ad hoc coalition of rebranded communists, the remnants of the once -powerful Social Democrats and a blogger in a black hat, who calls himself “Pitchfork” (the Czech word for Redneck).

On Wednesday night, during his only debate, headed by Prime Minister Peter Fiala, Andrei Babis ruled out the formation of a coalition with the Communists. “I’ll sign a piece of paper for this effect here in the studio,” he said.

Several of his potential allies want referendums to leave the EU and NATO.

Ano says this will not happen.

“We criticize the European Union, but we do not want to destroy it, we want to reform it,” Deputy Lider Karel Havlichek told the BBC.

“And NATO, well, we can criticize many things about it, but joining NATO was the most important moment in the history of the Czech Republic. Our position is to strengthen it,” he continued.

As we spoke a large inflatable dinosaur hanging over our heads, part of a bouncing castle raised for the Ano rally. For the older supporters, there were tents offering cups of coffee, free blood pressure checks and red baseball hats.

By the time I left, they were gone.

Throughout the city, the 19-year-old political science student, Ondrey Kapralek, who is an activist of the Liberal Pirate Party, is preparing to vote in his first election.

The pirates were part of the central right government until they left the coalition for a digitization scheme with destroyed digitalization.

But their political star rises again and can attract voters, despondent by both the government and the populist or extremist opposition.

“I certainly feel we need to invest in our security,” the student said.

“It’s not just about homes, not just the economy, not just the EU – all these things have to come together for my country to show my generation that they can have a big future here,” he told the BBC.

Like many young Czech progressives, he worries that his country can follow in the footsteps of Slovakia by Robert Fico or Hungary of Victor Orban -both EU and NATO members, but increasingly non -liberal and in favor of more relations with Moscow.

“Russia is leading a large-scale campaign to misinformation against the Czech Republic,” said security analyst Roman Maka, adding that Russian intelligence services are thought to stand behind cyber-attacks and arson cases.

He believes that the presence of Russia -convenient parties in an ANO government must put alarm bells that ring across Europe.

“These parties are pro -Russian, so they will want what is good for the Kremlin,” he told the BBC.

“They will ask Ano to stop supporting Ukraine, to end the Czech ammunition initiative, to oppose sanctions against Russia.”

Ano has already stated that it will scrap the initiative, which has provided 3.5 million artillery shells to Ukraine. They want to replace it with a more transparent scheme operating within NATO.

But the party’s potential coalition partners want to continue further, with radical redundancies for defense costs and expulsion of Ukrainian refugees.

Over the last few years, the Czech government’s loyalty – to the EU, to NATO, to protect Ukraine – has been steadfast.

If public opinion studies are accurate, this approach soon – the least – will be called into question.