Prague, Oct 22 (CTK) – Andrej Babis, leader of the winning ANO movement, has been trying to persuade the Mayors and Independents (STAN) to cooperate with him in a coalition, but in vain, Czech STAN chairman Petr Gazdik told reporters after a one-hour meeting with Babis on Sunday.
STAN representatives rank ANO, along with the Communists (KSCM) and the anti-Islam and anti-immigration Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement, among the entities with which they cannot cooperate due to “their democratic deficit.”
STAN, which was running solo for the first time in the October 20-21 general election, slightly crossed the 5-percent parliamentary threshold and entered the Chamber of Deputies. It won 5.2 percent of the vote and will have six MPs.
As the smallest party in the lower house, STAN cannot be striving for the post of deputy chairperson in it, Gazdik said.
After the election results were announced on Saturday night, Babis launched talks with the parties that entered the Chamber of Deputies.
He met the Communist (KSCM) representatives this morning.
Babis said he would like to debate primarily the arrangement of the Chamber of Deputies with all entities in it.
Before the meeting with Gazdik, Babis said ANO, which won the election with 29.6 percent of the vote and 78 MPs, would like to fill the post of lower house chairperson.
Babis was also talking STAN around to join a coalition with it unsuccessfully, Gazdik said.
“We have told him that we are not prepared to enter a coalition with ANO,” Gazdik said, adding that both parties’ main ideas are contradictory.
ANO is striving for more intense centralisation, while STAN wants the opposite.
Both chairmen also touched upon the Chamber of Deputies’ order of procedure. They agreed that with nine parties represented in it, the lower house should not work in the same way as when fewer parties were in it, Gazdik said.
