Prague, Oct 13 (CTK) – Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis, chairman of the ANO movement, wants to be the prime minister in order to be able to make decisions on the personnel and strategic development of the CEZ semi-state energy company, Bohumil Pecinka writes in weekly Reflex out yesterday.
He writes that there is a lot of speculations about why billionaire Babis, owner of the Agrofert holding, entered politics.
One of the most probable is that he wanted to protect his heavily indebted empire, which was burdened with credits worth about 50 billion crowns when he founded ANO in 2011.
He also wanted to secure a stable flow of money from European funds for his holding, Pecinka writes.
He writes that the CEZ formally falls under the Finance Ministry, but in fact, it is controlled by the prime minister.
Babis does not want CEZ, one of the largest Europan and still prospering energy firms, to improve its performance but to gain power and influence, Pecinka writes.
If he “had CEZ,” Babis would control a firm on which hundreds of strong firms, energy resellers and subcontractors of international importance depend, Pecinka writes.
For the same reason, Babis has long been unsuccessfully trying to gain control of the state-established General Health Insurance Company (VZP), or the heart of Czech health care, which “pumps money into the whole body,” Pecinka writes.
He writes that Babis’s effort in this respect is underlined by the fact that his firms have been active in the sector.
Pecinka writes that Babis also wants to be the prime minister at a time when a new EU financial framework for the next seven years will be drafted.
The BIS counter-intelligence and links to other secret services through the National Security Council (BRS) are also in the prime minister’s exclusive power, Pecinka writes.
He writes that this together with Babis’s years-long ties to specialised security corps and the role his media played in provoking a rebellion against the national police leadership show that more than a mere opportunity to form a new government coalition will be at play, Pecinka writes.
He writes that another, but not admitted winner of the regional elections is President Milos Zeman. First, his major political rivals, Bohuslav Sobotka, prime minister and Social Democrat (CSSD) head, and Miroslav Kalousek, chairman of the rightist opposition TOP 09, which only gained 3.4 percent of the vote, suffered a defeat.
Second, the coalition of Tomio Okamura’s opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) and Zeman’s Party of Citizens’ Rights (SPO) scored a relatively big election success, Pecinka writes.
He writes that the success does not rest in that it entered a majority of regional assemblies, but rather in that it won its “small struggle” with its anti-immigrant rivals and became the leader in this part of the political spectrum, which boosts Zeman’s political power.
In combination with Babis’s victory, this gives him a big chance of being re-elected president in 2018, Pecinka writes.
Zeman has not yet announced whether he will seek re-election. He said he will make a decision by next March.
However, Zeman will never be Babis’s slave, which he showed during the “police crisis,” when he pacified Babis. But without him, Zeman will not win the presidential election, while he himself can complicate Babis’s effort to form a new government, Pecinka writes.
