Prague, Jan 17 (CTK) – Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s minority cabinet (ANO) approved its resignation on Wednesday as it did not gain confidence in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday and it will rule until a new cabinet is appointed, Babis has told journalists.
Babis wants to have a personal meeting with Zeman. Zeman is expected to entrust Babis with forming a new cabinet. The talks with other parties have already started.
Zeman said this time he would only name Babis after he gains support from a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and that he would give more time for talks to the negotiating parties.
Zeman will accept resignation of Prime Minister Babis’s government by the end of this working week, the president’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said.
“We will have the talks. As I could see in the media, Social Democrats (CSSD) look like being ready for the negotiations,” Babis said.
He said the ANO negotiators would hear the conditions to be demanded by the Social Democrats and their position on the government policy statement.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Brabec said the government had not dealt with the way it would rule while in resignation.
Brabec said it would keep drafting the bills in the legislative process.
Defence Minister Karla Slechtova said before the government meeting that at the time the government would be in resignation, she did not want to sign any big contracts.
“We will take the usual steps. There will be some things the ministers will propose. The nation should not be without a government for any single minute,” Brabec said, adding that as the environment minister he wanted to submit some materials with a long-term importance.
CSSD and ANO representatives will meet to talk about cooperation in the second try to form a government this afternoon.
Jan Chvojka, chairman of the CSSD deputy group, said the meeting would have a consultation character and no conclusions were expected from it.
Chvojka said it was impossible to speak about negotiations as Zeman had not empowered anyone to try and form the government.
The CSSD has several conditions for its entering the government. It demands that no one who is criminally prosecuted should be in it.
The police have asked the Chamber of Deputies for Babis’s release for prosecution over an EU subsidy fraud.
The CSSD also demands that due to the cause, ANO should not control the finance, justice and interior ministries.
