In the Czech Republic, a week after the parliamentary elections, the prospects for forming a government are clearing up.

Everything is running towards Petr Fiala as the new head of government, the chairman of the conservative ODS, who is supported by two alliances from a total of five parties and thus has a majority.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is increasingly preparing himself verbally to go into the opposition, at least for the time being.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

  • Follow I follow

At the same time, the debate about the ailing Czech President Miloš Zeman’s capacity to act is becoming increasingly bizarre.

At least the newly elected parliament was called to its constituent session on November 8th, albeit under strange circumstances.

The doctors are silent

Parliament's President Radek Vondrácek held the decision to convene the House of Representatives in the cameras on Thursday. He had been to Zeman before to have the document signed. Except that the president is still in the intensive care unit of the Prague military hospital and is not supposed to receive any visitors, except for a select few. Last Sunday he was brought to the hospital from his country estate, where he had previously received the incumbent Prime Minister Babiš for an initial meeting.

It was to be the only political meeting of the President after the election results were available - until Vondrácek's visit, which was accompanied by the President's Chancellor, Vratislav Mynár. Vondrácek then claimed that Zeman was perfectly fit for office and that he was joking. How the president is really doing, whether and, if so, when his return to office can be expected, the attending doctors have so far been silent. It is only a question of complications in a known chronic disease, one knows the diagnosis exactly, but is not authorized to talk about it, it just says.

In an emotional appearance, Zeman's wife demanded patience and respect and the renunciation of unethical speculations.

Zeman is undergoing therapy and needs time so that he can regain his strength.

Commentators, however, argue that the president is not simply a private person.

At least a prognosis about the time of a possible return can be expected.

The fact that Vondrácek von Mynár, who was one of the few authorized to visit by hospital staff, had gone to see Zeman without a doctor's permission was heavily criticized.

The hospital released an outraged notice in which the President's lay diagnosis was also rejected.

Criticism also came from most of the parties.

Babiš keeps a door open

Alluding to a message from the “Burg”, the official residence of the president, that Zeman had eaten a dessert, Vit Rakusan, head of the mayor's party, tweeted: “Psalms, apricot dumplings, smuggle the third highest state representative to the president when the doctor and nurse don't look. What kind of people are they? ”Babiš also distanced himself from Vondrácek, a partisan of his ANO. However, his main complaint was that it had been done without consulting him.

In last week's election, Babiš failed to achieve his own majority or at least a blocking minority. Because the right-wing extremist SPD fared weaker and the communists and the social democrats, who had partially supported Babiš in the past period, have completely fallen out of parliament, it is enough for the two alliances of the five previous opposition parties. They have committed themselves in writing to only negotiating with one another.

Over the course of the week, his statements in the direction of the opposition have become less and less ambiguous, although he still keeps a door open rhetorically.

He was expecting to hand over the office to Fiala, he said at last;

until then, however, he will work “until the last moment”.

In the light of Zeman's state of health, however, his behavior feeds speculation that Babiš is now directing his political ambitions to a different office than that of Prime Minister.

Risky bet on the presidency

The online portal Echo - not exactly a hoard of Babiš supporters, but operated by experienced journalists - points out that he had previously commissioned surveys about his chances of a direct election of the president.

The result was actually devastating, for two thirds he was considered ineligible because of his corruption affairs and conflicts of interest.

But if you take the result of the parliamentary election as a basis and add all votes that did not go to the future government blocs fictitiously to Babiš, including those from parties below the five percent threshold, then it could be enough.

It would be a risky bet.

But such an attempt could certainly appear to him more tempting than to perish in the opposition or lose immunity by leaving politics.