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Billionaire Babis’ Party Dominates Czech Regional Elections
(Bloomberg) -- The populist opposition party of billionaire and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis dominated Czech regional elections held Friday and Saturday in a warning for the current center-right government a year before a parliamentary ballot.
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Babis’ ANO secured more than 35% of votes to come out on top in 10 out of the 13 administrative regions, the Czech Statistics Office said with more than 99% of precincts counted.
Groups linked to the five parties which comprise the current national government won in the remaining three regions, in a vote that notably excluded their biggest stronghold, the capital Prague.
Only 33% of eligible voters took part in the elections, held just days after the worst floods in decades ravaged parts of eastern Czech Republic.
While regional governors and assemblies primarily take care of roads, schools and hospitals and rarely feature in national news, the vote was a popularity test for Premier Petr Fiala’s administration. After Babis’s government of 2017-2021 ran record budget deficits, the current ruling coalition is trying to restore fiscal discipline through an unpopular mix of spending curbs and tax increases.
“The results confirm a longer-term trend and suggest that ANO will likely also win the general elections next year,” political scientist Jakub Lysek from Palacky University Olomouc said on public television. “Something for the ruling parties to think about.”
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