by Marie Heřmanová and Kateřina Smejkalová
Andrej Babiš’s ANO triumphed as liberal rivals preached democracy but ignored inequality. Marie Heřmanová and Kateřina Smejkalová argue that this moralizing stance helped fuel the far right’s rise—and deepened Czechia’s democratic malaise.
The weekend parliamentary elections in Czechia were won by the ANO movement of the oligarch and former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who ended up with an exceptionally strong mandate. At the same time, his victory, however strong, is not sufficient for him to build a single-party government. At the present moment, a coalition with the far-right party SPD, led by the Czech-Japanese entrepreneur Tomio Okamura, and a new political party “The Motorists” – a market fundamentalist, conservative, masculinist party with an anti-climate accent – seems the most likely outcome of the post-election negotiations.
While this result predictably caused a wave of concerned commentary in both Czech and international liberal media, it was anything but unexpected. The former coalition parties from the group SPOLU (“Together”), led by the right-wing ODS, campaigned on an anti-Babiš, anti-extremist, pro-democracy and pro-western platform, while also drawing on outdated anti-communist rhetoric.
They presented the election as a moral battle between Good and Evil, effectively admonishing Babiš’ voters as “bad people”.
Their campaign was founded more on necessity than choice, as their governmental record – besides the solid foreign policy towards Ukraine – was devastating, with SPOLU leaving the country with one of the severest cost of living crises in the whole EU.
This unpromising campaign strategy was aggravated by various movements of mainly liberal, well-educated citizens and NGO campaigners whose paternalistic messaging – “it is important that you go and vote because voting is the ultimate exercise of democratic rights”, by which they really meant: “make sure to avoid voting for the populists” – polarized society even more than the campaign of the extremists, and mobilized voters who felt misunderstood, patronized and demonized.
It is important to note that this division of society into “good, Western” vs. “bad, pro-Russian” camps is not only artificial but fails to address fundamental sociological realities.
SPOLU’s campaign completely ignored urgent societal problems such as the severe housing crisis and energy poverty, persistently low wages and weak labour protections or massive wealth concentration. Not only that, it also effectively thwarted any reasonable debate about policy solutions to these issues – and this despite studies showing that Czech voters repeatedly placed affordable health care and housing, high prices and low quality of food at the top of their list of concerns.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the increased support for the winning populist block was due to the mobilization of the poorer peripheries. Andrej Babiš managed to present himself as an experienced statesman who will take care of the people as he did the last time as prime minister, which contrasted strongly with the alarmist and shallow campaign of the governing parties.
Furthermore, the aforementioned campaign strategy also included the pledge to “never work with Babiš”, which effectively entrenched the far-right SPD and the market fundamentalist Motorists as the most probable coalition partners for an ANO-led government.
In his previous stint as prime minister, Babiš presented himself as a technocrat. His transgressions against the democratic order mostly revolved around the furthering of his own business interests, but didn’t have human rights, cultural politics or foreign policy in their sight. This may be different this time, especially if the SPD and Motorists will be included as coalition partners instead of supporting a minority ANO government through a confidence and supply agreement. Even though Babiš himself had a catch-all intention and therefore campaigned altogether fairly moderately, the three parties are united by a strong anti-immigration agenda, the goal of weakening the public media, and strong skepticism towards the EU.
The turn towards far-right authoritarianism is thus more likely than in his previous terms – but not a given, as Babiš lacks Viktor Orbán’s charisma and long-term vision. At the core he still is more of a technocrat rather than an ideologue. This, however, does not rule out a course correction on certain key issues.
To start with the most significant point from the perspective of the EU, the previous government’s staunch support for Ukraine will most likely be watered down. Radical steps, such as leaving the EU or NATO are clearly off the table, but the new government, under the influence of the Motorists (whose appeal rests on their opposition to “green extremism”), will probably backtrack on climate policy. Economic and social policy might on the other hand be the most controversial policy fields, with Babiš and the SPD favoring certain protectionist measures and the Motorists advocating for deregulation and state retrenchment.
Meanwhile, the liberal and conservative losers of the election, the self-appointed “block of democratic forces”, are caught in a dilemma. As their main aim was to prevent Babiš and the extremist forces from accessing power, they cannot escape the question of why they refuse to govern with him, or at least support a minority ANO government, to replace the extremists they painted as the gravest threat. The only thing that may allow them to save face and prevent the unmasking of the saving of democracy as not much more than an empty campaign message is Babiš himself, who may prefer to work with the SPD and Motorists in the end.
Marie Heřmanová is a researcher at University College London and associate professor at Charles University in Prague, focusing on digital cultures and political polarization.
Kateřina Smejkalová is a political scientist affiliated with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Prague, focusing on labor, social policy, and the crisis of democracy in post-socialist Europe.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
