Czech legislative: despite suspicions of fraud, Andrej Babis leads the polls
An election notice board for Czech Prime Minister and ANO party leader Andrej Babis ahead of the Czech parliamentary elections in Prague on October 7, 2021. REUTERS - BERNADETT SZABO
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Parliamentary elections are held in the Czech Republic on Friday and Saturday.
Outgoing Prime Minister Andrej Babis is one of the top sitting EU leaders targeted by the Pandora Papers investigation.
He could win the election again.
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With our correspondent in Prague,
Alexis Rosenzweig
In the latest televised debates, Andrej Babis is necessarily on the defensive to defend his balance sheet, but especially this week to defend the off-shore financial package used during his purchases in luxury real estate in Mougins, France, and revealed by the
Pandora Papers
.
It was in 2009, before his sensational entry into politics, and this is what he is working to repeat for his electorate who remains loyal despite everything.
► To read also: Pandora Papers: the Czech Prime Minister in turmoil before the legislative elections
The formation of a coalition promises to be complicated
Andrej Babis' ANO (for “Disgruntled Citizens Action”) party remains at the top of the polls, but it will have to form a coalition validated by President Milos Zeman, who despite fragile health could play a key role, as pointed out Michel Perottino, political scientist from Charles University in Prague.
"
The President of the Republic, who is finishing his second term, has nothing more to lose and will have carte blanche to compose a government, which will not necessarily come from the polls,
" he said.
And Andrej Babis should be able to count on the support of President Zeman in the post-election negotiations, but a potential coalition with the extreme right would surely be very badly perceived by his allies in the European Parliament, already very annoyed by his rapprochement with the Hungarian Viktor Orban and by the suspicions of conflict of interest weighing on this extremely wealthy entrepreneur who became a politician after having founded an industrial and media empire.
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