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PRAGUE: Billionaire ex-premier and self-described “Trumpist” Andrej Babis’s party looks set to top the Czech general election next weekend, possibly drawing the Ukraine ally closer to EU mavericks Hungary and Slovakia.
The Czech Republic’s current center-right coalition government, in power in the EU and NATO member since 2021, has supported Kyiv in the face of Russia’s invasion, welcoming war refugees and providing military aid.
But Babis’s return to power could spell rocky relations with both Kyiv and Brussels.
Describing himself as a “peacemonger” calling for a truce in Ukraine, Babis has rejected sending military aid and vowed a “Czechs first” approach.
He is on good terms with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, who both foster close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2024, Babis and Orban co-founded the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, which also comprises France’s National Rally among other parties.
“It’s no exaggeration to say the vote will determine Czechia’s geopolitical position,” Petr Just, a political analyst at the Metropolitan University in Prague, told AFP.

- ‘Russia’s collaborators’ -

The 71-year-old Babis, who served as premier in 2017-2021, owns the sprawling farming and chemicals group Agrofert and is the seventh-wealthiest Czech according to Forbes magazine.
Ahead of the election to be held Friday and Saturday, Babis’s ANO movement is leading the polls with about 30 percent support in the country of 10.9 million people.
Polling second at 20 percent is the Together grouping led by outgoing right-wing Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
Whoever comes out on top will almost certainly have to negotiate with smaller parties to form a government.
Fiala, a 61-year-old former political science professor, said on X that “we must not lose our country’s destiny to Russia’s collaborators,” warning against an ANO-led government.
Fiala’s Together won the last election in 2021 by a hair’s breadth, edging ANO — long tipped as the winner — at the last moment.
But analyst Just said a similar surprise was unlikely this time.
“The government always comes from a worse position. Polls show the government is also losing its own voters blaming it for failing to keep its promises,” he said.
Fiala is under fire for paying too much attention to war-ravaged Ukraine and ignoring problems at home.
Critics blame the government for failing to lower taxes, raise teachers’ wages, and reform the judiciary.

- ‘Complicated’ -

Babis, on the other hand, is facing a fraud trial after allegedly taking his farm out of Agrofert to make it eligible for an EU subsidy for small companies in 2007.
He has also been under investigation in France since 2022 for suspected money laundering and tax fraud over the acquisition of a castle on the picturesque French Riviera.
Babis is also dogged by allegations that he served as a secret police agent when former Czechoslovakia was ruled by Moscow-steered Communists.
The Slovak-born tycoon, who is sympathetic to the policies of US President Donald Trump, rejects all allegations as a smear campaign.
He has also vowed to resolve his conflict of interest as a businessman and politician, without saying how.
But President Petr Pavel, who will appoint the new government, has suggested he may have a problem tapping Babis as premier given his woes.
ANO’s potential partners after the elections could be the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement and the far-left Enough! movement, which both want a referendum on leaving the EU.
“The talks after the elections will be rather complicated and probably long,” Just said.

SEOUL: Hundreds of South Korean public services remained offline on Monday after a fire at a data center disrupted government websites and exposed vulnerabilities in the country’s digital infrastructure.
Authorities said 62 government services had been restored out of about 647 systems affected by the fire which broke out during routine maintenance in a server room at the state-run National Information Resources Service in Daejeon on Friday.
President Lee Jae Myung has apologized for the disruption, saying it was surprising the government had no better backup after similar government service outages in 2023.
Organizations affected by the fire include Korea Customs, the National Police Agency and the National Fire Agency, according to the safety ministry. Some government websites like the safety ministry were out of service as of Monday.
Officials have not given a timetable for full restoration of the disrupted services.
“We see services restoring every hour,” Safety Minister Yun Ho-jung told a briefing, citing recovery of Government24, Korea’s main portal for public services, and financial and postal systems run by Korea Post.
South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries, with many government services from identification to media briefings online.
Experts said the latest outage suggested the government lacked adequate systems for immediate recovery of critical public services despite major tech disruptions in recent years.
In 2022, a fire at a data center hit some of the country’s most-used apps and websites, including Kakao messenger and the company’s online payment services among others.
“Such disruptions should never occur at a national agency, and real-time synchronization and recovery systems need to be implemented as soon as possible,” said Lee Seong-yeob, a professor at Korea University’s Graduate School of Management of Technology.
“The government should have recognized the need for a higher level of contingency planning, but it seems they were complacent.”
President Lee on Sunday ordered “significant improvement” in the security of government systems and asked ministers to propose budgets for emergency systems to prevent similar outages.
Battery expired
Investigators suspect the fire began after a battery produced by LG Energy Solution exploded during maintenance on Friday night, damaging some servers and forcing hundreds to be shut down. LG Energy Solution declined to comment, saying the matter was under investigation.
Yun said the government would notify the public as major services came back online and warned of increased disruption to daily life while recovery continued.
The batteries, sold and maintained by LG Energy affiliate LG CNS, had been used for more than a decade and their warranty expired last year, according to the safety ministry.
LG CNS advised the government to replace them during a routine checkup in June 2024, although they remained functional, the ministry said.