Fair enough: 12 parties are preparing to go to the House. The new government prepares a game for the princess scooter
The elections have once again brought results that no survey had predicted. No matter, people make up their minds just before the ballot boxes, so their behavior cannot be predicted several weeks in advance. The victory of the ANO movement was even more pronounced than expected, however, Andrej Babiš's party continued to flaunt potential coalition partners. He now surprisingly easily finds common ground with them. They do not hold back from reality, whether it is the pitfalls of domestic or foreign policy.
The chairman of the ANO movement, Babiš, is a known pragmatist and this is also how he approaches the formation of the new government. Motorists immediately offered him their support after the elections, and were soon followed by the extremist SPD. His supporters are radiating confidence for now, but when it comes to sharing bread, it may well turn out that Andrej Babiš does not like to share power, as we can see from within the ANO movement itself.
While the Motorists have prepared a negotiating team consisting of the chairmen Macinka, who represents young politicians in the colors of the Motorists and Boris Šťastný, who represents the heirs of the Klaus-style ODS, for which he sat in the Chamber of Deputies for many years. Filip Turek also participates in the negotiations, but as is known, he is primarily for show. Which he admitted when he mentioned in his post-election speech that he is most interested in the hearts from his female voters. For ANO, only Andrej Babiš negotiates, because he does not need to consult with anyone.
Trillions for photocopiers
In the first post-election debates among politicians forming a new government, a feeling of deja vu occurred. On Saturday night, for example, Matěj Gregor (Motorists) declared a balanced budget as the main goal. The next day in Questions of Václav Moravec, Karel Havlíček, the second man of ANO, also happily agreed.
The Motorists want to save hundreds of billions on the operation of the state. Havlíček supplemented the ambitions worthy of Miroslav Kalousek after consuming a horse dose of budget cuts with an excellent idea that the state budget will be padded by economic growth. In other words, it will sort itself out.
In the pre-election campaign, however, ANO came out with a left-wing program, which promised to increase the salaries of state employees, lower taxes for companies, cancel the savings from the so-called pension reform of the previous government (indeed, these will almost not be felt in the next four years), and a series of other expenses. Economists estimate the costs of this policy estimate at hundreds of billions. Therefore, in post-election euphoria, motorists argued that the savings on paper for office photocopiers and layoffs for surplus doormen, who will end up at the Employment Office, will save almost half a trillion crowns by the end of the election term.
It is true that the Czech Republic kicked off its economic boom this year, but the first post-election debates brought a discussion in the spirit of a fairy tale about a princess on a scooter who can be half-dressed and half-naked. However, the curiosity of the observers suffered the most, the desire for positions will certainly be stronger than the ideals of twenty-three-year-old deputy Matěj Gregor. Babiš then brought the heated debates of his aides back to reality in a post-election interview. There will be no balanced budgets.
More of a lesson from France is threatened
"A warning lesson from France, which is no longer able to govern under the burden of massive social spending. Andrej Babiš is preparing to dramatically increase this social spending. Pensions, benefits, salaries, energy subsidies,"
analyst Lenka Zlámalová reminded on X how reality looks, unlike scooter fairy tales.
She just forgot to add that in times of prominent security risks, security expenses will continue to increase. Drones in Poland, Denmark, the Baltic states, but also over Munich airport (which is even further from Russia than Czech airspace is) remind us of the course of current reality. Among experts in security situation, there is talk of a possible direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
Andrej Babis had to promise to President Pavel that there would be no unnecessary thriftiness here as well. Let's also recall how much Andrej Babis enjoyed his last visit to Donald Trump. If he is considering a repeat, he will need to purchase some American hi-tech weaponry. Even F-35s were not enough for the invite to Fiala, so it certainly won't be cheap.
The Ministry of Defense might lose its appeal for SPD, Okamura's cobbling together is currently maximizing their demands but this will probably not pass with the president. However, not all cards are in one hand. Andrej Babis is threatened with a sentence according to the verdict of the appellate court. And only the votes of SPD and motorist party stand in the way of the Chamber of Deputies expelling him.
Foreign media then note that the ANO government should weaken the unity of European countries and, in the spirit of cooperation in the European Patriot faction, should become a similar troublemaker as his favorite Viktor Orbán. However, at the end of the campaign, Babiš intensively declared his membership in NATO and the EU, which is particularly doubted by the SPD and in the case of the EU, this is also the case with Motorists.
Furthermore, there is a conflict of interest law here, where companies owned by a government member cannot receive subsidies, which is overseen by no one other than government members. Babiš must therefore either get rid of Agrofert or relinquish the prime minister's (government's) seat to someone else, which he definitely does not intend to do. In short, so far we have only learned a mix of paradoxes about the new government, like from a fairy tale about the scooter princess.
Sources: author's text, commentary, aktualne.cz, seznamzpravy.cz, idnes.cz, x.com, cnn.com
