Prague, April 29 (CTK) – ANO leader Andrej Babis would resign as prime minister if all the Social Democrat (CSSD) ministers left his cabinet, but such a demand has no place in a coalition agreement of ANO and the CSSD, Chamber of Deputies chairman Radek Vondracek (ANO) told TV Prima today.
Milan Stech (Social Democrats, CSSD), who heads the other house of the Czech parliament, the Senate, said Babis changed his opinions once he could profit from him.
Vondracek said Babis declared during the negotiations about a possible government coalition with the CSSD that he would resign from the post of prime minister on his own if the CSSD ministers left the cabinet. He said such a demand was humiliating and disparaging.
Stech said all big decisions in ANO were made by Babis who started the movement and there were no democratic decision-making processes in ANO.
Vondracek rejected this. He said ANO is strong because it sticks together and supports its leader.
Stech opposes a minority government of the CSSD and ANO tolerated by the Communists (KSCM).
ANO clearly won the general election last October and President Milos Zeman appointed ANO’s minority cabinet led by Babis in December. However, no other party supported Babis’s cabinet in the confidence vote and the cabinet is now ruling in resignation. Its rule will end once a new government is appointed. Babis has been negotiating with the Social Democrats who left the negotiating table already once in early April. The ANO leadership rejected to negotiate about a government with the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) of Tomio Okamura.
ANO has 78 seats in the 200-member Chamber of Deputies, the CSSD and the KSCM have 15 seats each. ANO offered to give the CSSD five ministries in the 15-member cabinet, including the interior and foreign affairs. Babis insists on being prime minister despite his prosecution over a suspected EU subsidy fraud.