Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) – Expert teams of Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO and the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) will elaborate 30 priorities the SPD wants to have passed through the government to be formed by Babis, SPD leader Tomio Okamura told journalists on Wednesday.
If the government receives the backing from the SPD and Communists (KSCM), there may be a cabinet of experts, Okamura said.
Okamura criticised Defence Minister Karla Slechtova, Transport Minister Dan Tok and Justice Minister Robert Pelikan, arguing that they are no experts.
After the senior officials of the two parties met, SPD representatives stressed that they did not want to be in the government.
If they back the government, they will be watching whether their programme priorities are fulfilled, they added.
If not, the SPD will provoke a no-confidence vote, Okamura said.
Before the meeting was held, Babis told journalists ANO did not want to form a coalition with the SPD or rely on his government being tolerated by it.
Okamura said the two parties had agreed on the experts who would draft a written version of the agreement on the SPD priorities being implemented by the next government during the next week.
“We did not see any major discrepancies. It arose from the talks that they [ANO leaders] are ready to collaborate in some form on virtually all programme points in exchange for a possible support for a government,” Okamura said.
The priorities include the transfer of welfare payment from the “unadapted” to the working people, the introduction of personal accountability of politicians and state attorneys, indexation of pensions to all by the same sum and the rules for distrainers.
President Milos Zeman has entrusted Babis with forming a government. ANO alone does not have the sufficient majority in the Chamber of Deputies.
