Saturday afternoon saw up to 300.000 supporters of the Million Chvilek movement meet at Letná Park to demonstrate against what they see as misuse of power by politicians. The movement has set an ultimatum for Premier Andrej Babiš to dispose of Agrofert and the Minister of Justice Marie Benešová, or himself resign. If the Premier does not react the movement is threatening more demonstrations in January, said the head of the organization Mikuláš Minář.
It is not sufficient that the Premier has transferred his assets to a trust and was elected in what world election watchdogs call a fair election. Babis is considered the most popular politician in the country according to STEM, in an article published by Idnes.cz on the 18th of July, 2019. That did not stop politicians from various parties joining the gathering.
Vit Rakusan (STAN) mentioned that the most rational point of the movement is to change the electoral system – something CDU-KSL has been working on for two years. According to Rakusan it is also rational to consolidate some of the smaller coalitions. The chairman of the Pirates, Ivan Bartos stated that he was waiting to see the results of the coalitions and that if the Pirates joined a coalition, he knows many of his voters would be disappointed. Petr Fiala (ODS) told media that people should be more active, not just complain about how things are done.
The spokesperson for the movement told media that the demonstrations were as successful as they expected. They were not however expecting that the turnout would be as high as during the summer and were pleasantly surprised. It was an emotional day and the spokesperson went on to describe that during the prayers he even felt tears running down his cheeks.
Babis’ only response was on Sunday saying that there are fair and free elections in the Czech Republic.
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