MICHAL CIZEK / AFP
Czech billionaire businessman Andrej Babis was on course on Saturday for a big win in a parliamentary election, early results showed, ushering his ANO party to power to cut taxes, lift investments and fight immigration.
Babis’s ANO movement had won 30.74 percent of the vote — nearly three times more than any other party’s showing — with 77.65 percent of voting districts counted.
At 7.56 percent, the ruling Social Democrats of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka were on course for their worst result since the country peacefully split with Slovakia in 1993.
The Social Democrats or the Civic Democrats have led every Czech cabinet since Czechoslovakia split, apart from caretaker administrations.
The Czech economy has enjoyed rapid growth, a balanced budget and the lowest unemployment in the European Union in the past four years, but the Social Democrats – who led a government with ANO and another partner – have not been able to capitalise.
Instead, ANO and other anti-establishment groups took advantage of voters’ disgust with politics as usual by promising to week out corruption, fight deeper European Union integration and stop the country from accepting quotas for taking in refugees imposed by Brussels.
Babis himself has promised to bring a businessman’s touch to government, resonating with voters.
Reuters
