Prague, Nov 30 (CTK) – Alena Schillerova will be finance minister, Tomas Huner industry and trade minister and Jaroslava Nemcova will head the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry in a new minority Czech government, next PM and ANO chairman Andrej Babis confirmed to Czech Radio on Thursday.
He said he would like to ask the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, for confidence, in January.
Schillerova has occupied the post of deputy finance minister so far, Huner is a manager of Siemens in the Czech Republic, while Nemcova is a councillor in charge of the health sector in the Central Bohemia Region.
Babis said after his Tuesday meeting with President Milos Zeman that he had promised to him not to make the names of the future ministers public.
However, in the following days he confirmed to the media that Lubomir Metnar, former deputy interior minister and former head of the security section of the Vitkovice engineering plant, is his candidate for interior minister, while Jiri Milek, owner and general director of the Usovsko food processing company, should head the Agriculture Ministry.
Babis’s one-colour cabinet will include nine newcomers who have never been ministers before and four women. Besides, the ANO ministers in the outgoing centre-left coalition government of the Social Democrats (CSSD), ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), which tendered its resignation on Wednesday, will continue in the next cabinet. These are Richard Brabec, Dan Tok, Martin Stropnicky, Robert Pelikan and Karla Slechtova.
Slechtova, who has headed the Regional Development Ministry, confirmed that she was a candidate for defence minister to replace Stropnicky who would become a new diplomacy head.
Zeman announced that he would appoint Babis prime minister on December 6 and his government a week later, on December 13.
One of the main programme points of the prepared minority government will be a pension reform, Babis told Czech Radio-Radiozurnal on Thursday, in reaction to a question how he would like to persuade other parties in parliament to support his cabinet.
At present, they rule out they would vote confidence in Babis’s government. Only the Communists (KSCM) are willing to tolerate it under certain conditions.
Primarily right-centrist parties, the Civic Democrats (ODS), TOP 09 and Mayors and Independents (STAN), call for a pension reform. They might agree on some pension measures with ANO, such as support for private pension savings and reflecting childcare in the calculation of a pension level.
Probable members of nascent government of Andrej Babis:
Prime Minister Andrej Babis
Transport Minister Dan Tok
Finance Minister Alena Schillerova
Culture Minister Ilja Smid
Defence Minister Karla Slechtova
Labour and Social Affairs Minister Jaroslava Nemcova
Regional Development Minister Klara Dostalova
Industry and Trade Minister Tomas Huner
Justice Minister Robert Pelikan
Education Minister Robert Plaga
Interior Minister Lubomir Metnar
Foreign Affairs Minister Martin Stropnicky
Health Minister Adam Vojtech
Agriculture Minister Jiri Milek
Environment Minister Richard Brabec
hol/dr/kva
