Prague/Luxembourg, Oct 11 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman considers the emerging regional coalitions against the ANO movement of Andrej Babis to be an unsporting uniting of parties with the aim to sideline the election winner, which could be considered a betrayal of voters, his spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said yesterday.
Babis, the finance minister now on a working visit to Luxembourg, told journalists that the parties which tend to align against ANO fear a possible enquiry into the past of the respective regions.
ANO scored a sweeping victory in the October 7-8 voting, which was the first regional election in which it took part.
However, ANO will probably go into opposition in the Hradec Kralove, Pardubice and Plzen regions even though it won the weekend elections there.
“With regard to the post-election negotiations, heterogeneous parties are being united into coalitions in an unsporting and sometimes even politically bizarre way with the sole aim: to eliminate the winner. Such alliances can be seen as a sort of betrayal of voters,” Ovcacek said.
Babis said the alliance of the CSSD and KDU-CSL has lasted long in the Pardubice Region.
“The two parties have been old allies there, which is why [ANO] had no chance [to enter the regional government],” Babis said.
In the Hradec Kralove and Plzen regions, other parties agreed beforehand not to let ANO enter the [regional] coalition [government], Babis said.
“Of course, they fear that we might try to enquire into certain past affairs. This is probably the main reason why they do not want us [in the regional government],” Babis said.
He mainly criticised the situation in the Plzen Region, west Bohemia, branding it a “Palermo.”
He said the region’s officials for the CSSD are linked to the privatisation of the Skoda Transportation company and to “dubious contracts” signed with public transport companies and the state-controlled Czech Railways company.
“They have been operating there smoothly together with the [rightist] Civic Democrats (ODS), the godfathers,” Babis said.
“In the Plzen Region, we definitely did not want to assist in the continuation of various [disputable] projects they created there together in the past years,” Babis said, referring to the CSSD and the ODS.
Ovcacek said Zeman assesses positively the possible emergence of a coalition of the winning Social Democrats (CSSD) and ANO in the Vysocina region, which he says would be based on real election results.
Zeman considers ANO’s offer to leave the post of governor to outgoing Oldrich Bubenicek (Communists, KSCM) in the Usti Region, if the election winner, ANO, and the KSCM agree to form a coalition, a “generous gesture.”
Ovcacek repeated Zeman’s opinion that not bad work of regions, but mistakes the CSSD made on national level caused the party’s failure in the regional elections.
The CSSD only won in two out of 13 regions and lost nine regions compared to the 2012 elections. ANO won in nine regions.
“The failure of any party is due to an insufficiently resolute leadership and a little convincing programme,” Ovcacek said.
Zeman also says the two successful CSSD governors, Jiri Zimola of South Bohemia and Jiri Behounek of Vysocina, take a reserved stance on the party leadership.
Zimola will meet Zeman at his own request at 17:00 yesterday. Zimola wrote on Facebook that he wants to personally thank Zeman for his support in the election campaign during his recent tour of South Bohemia.
ms,rtj/dr/hol,ms
