Prague, May 17 (CTK) – Thousands of people again came to Prague’s Wenceslas Square to protest against Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) and President Milos Zeman and similar rallies are held in seven other Czech towns.
The event “It is up to us! Why? Because!” follows up protests held one week ago.
Organisers said there were 6000 to 7000 people in Prague at 18:30, while the police would not estimate the number of protesters.
Like last week, the demonstrators demand that the ANO movement be stripped of influence on the Finance Ministry and Zeman’s resignation.
They also support for a constitutional complaint against Zeman unless he dismisses Babis as finance minister.
Some participants carried the Tibetan flag. Zeman ended yesterday a visit to China, which occupied Tibet in 1950.
Sarka Fialova, the organiser of the Prague demonstration, said Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka’s (Social Democrats, CSSD) announcement on Wednesday that he agrees with lawmaker Ivan Pilny (ANO) replacing Babis as finance minister is at variance with the demonstrations’ goals.
“We were displeased with this since public support was quite big. We hoped that the prime minister will follow the line he started. Now, he acted in an entirely opposite way,” she told CTK
She said the organisers will leave it up to people to decide in what way they want to continue in the protests.
Zeman’s rivals in the direct presidential election to be held early next year, former Science Academy chairman Jiri Drahos, businessman and lyricist Michal Horacek and physician and activist Marek Hilser, collected signatures needed for the election during the Prague demonstration.
Demonstrations are also repeated in Brno, Liberec, north Bohemia, Olomouc, north Moravia, and Ceske Budejovice, south Bohemia.
Hradec Kralove, east Bohemia, Ostrava, north Moravia, and Uherske Hradiste, south Moravia, joined the protests for the first time on Wednesday.
Zeman said a week ago he had experienced more demonstrations against himself and that all protests faded away with time. But he said people are fully entitled to demonstrate.
The current government crisis was triggered by Babis’s unclear business activities and property situation.
Sobotka first said he will tender the resignation of the whole government, but he eventually proposed to Zeman that he sack Babis.
Sobotka announced on Wednesday that he would comply with ANO’s nomination and will propose MP Pilny as Babis’s successor to Zeman.
