Prague, Aug 12 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman will appoint the winner of the October 20-21 general election as a prime minister, his spokesman Jiri Ovcacek has told server Aktualne.cz.
He was reacting to the police request that the Chamber of Deputies release for prosecution lawmakers Andrej Babis and Jaroslav Faltynek (both ANO) over the Farma Capi hnizdo (Stork Next) company subsidy.
ANO, of which Babis is chairman, is a clear favourite of the October 20-21 general election.
Miroslav Kalousek, chairman of the opposition conservative TOP 09, said Zeman did not want to appoint a government over the possibility that charges will be brought against a politician in the past, and that he is changing his stances to accommodate himself and his allies.
Ovcacek reacted reacted saying that if TOP 09 does not like the appointment of the election winner as a prime minister, if “it does not like democracy, it should go to the East.”
However, TOP 09 places emphasis on the western orientation of the country and its EU membership.
Ovcacek said Zeman sticks to his previous statement that he will appoint the election winner as a new prime minister.
“The decision on guilt and innocence is made by court, not by (Martin) Plisek (opposition TOP 09) or (Miroslava) Nemcova (opposition Civic Democrats, ODS),” Ovcacek wrote.
Nemcova is chairwoman of the mandate and immunity committee of the Chamber of Deputies and Plisek is its deputy head. The committee will deal with the police request before a plenary meeting of the lower house of parliament takes a vote on it.
Ovcacek also asked why the police requested the release of the two ANO representatives two and a half months before the election.
“I am simply thinking about the doubts raised by Andrej Babis,” he wrote.
Babis reacted to the police request saying it is a part of the political struggle aimed to avert his October election candidacy.
A complaint against both Babis and Faltynek in connection with Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) was filed in 2015.
Until 2007, the Farma Capi hnizdo company belonged to Babis’s Agrofert Holding. Afterwards, its stake was transferred to bearer shares for a small firm to reach a 50-million crown EU subsidy, which a firm of the huge Agrofert Holding could never get. It observed this condition for a few years, but later it again returned to Babis’s concern.
At an extraordinary meeting of the Chamber of Deputies initiated by the opposition last year, billionaire businessman Babis said the farm was owned by two of his adult children and a brother of his partner in life. He married her in July.
Babis transferred the Agrofert concern, including some media outlets, to trust funds in February to comply with an amended conflict of interest law.
The Chamber of Deputies is to deal with the police request for Babis and Faltynek’s release at its session that starts on September 5.
If the Chamber of Deputies released Babis and Faltynek for prosecution and if they defended their mandates in the October 20-21 general election, the police would have to ask the new Chamber of Deputies for their release if it wanted to carry ou the investigation.
