Prague, Dec 2 (CTK) – Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) will complete his private talks with the ministers of his cabinet next week when he plans to meet Finance Minister Andrej Babis, leader of the ANO movement, the Government Office announced Friday.
Sobotka has been meeting the ministers one by one since November 14 and he has been setting the priorities of their work for the last 11 months before the next general election.
Babis challenged the meetings and labelled them a marketing campaign of the CSSD.
The CSSD and ANO are coalition partners but also political rivals. One year before the election, ANO is more popular than the CSSD and Babis has the ambition to become the next prime minister.
Sobotka recently announced a reshuffle of the cabinet and he replaced two CSSD cabinet members – health minister Svatopluk Nemecek and human rights minister Jiri Dienstbier. Miloslav Ludvik and Jan Chvojka, respectively, were appointed to the posts on Wednesday.
Media speculated that Labour Minister Michaela Marksova (CSSD) would be sacked as well. Marksova is the only CSSD minister whom Sobotka has not met yet. She said earlier this week that her talks with Sobotka have not yet been held.
Sobotka called on the leaders of his coalition partners, ANO and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), to consider personnel changes of some of their ministers, but both Babis and KDU-CSL chairman Pavel Belobradek rejected the idea.
Babis indicated that the replacement of the two ministers was related to the failure of the CSSD in the October regional and Senate elections rather than to the work of the government.
The talks between Sobotka and Belobradek are scheduled for this afternoon.
Sobotka recently blamed Babis for presenting the results of the government’s work as successes that ANO alone has achieved. This week, he criticised Babis for proposing changes to the electronic registration of sales that was introduced on December 1.
On the other hand, Babis said Sobotka claimed that the bill on the conflict of interest would not concern the present ministers, yet it would considerably affect his businesses.
The billionaire Babis owns the huge Agrofert holding. If the bill takes effect, Babis’s firms will not be allowed to apply for state subsidies, among others.
kva/dr/rtj
