When Czech voters head to ballot boxes this weekend, many fear the country may turn away from its pro-European path, taking away one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters as its battle to repel invading Russian forces nears the four-year mark.
Most polls indicate that billionaire Andrej Babis and his populist ANO party will win the parliamentary elections on October 3-4 with around 30 percent of the vote.
That means Babis would have to form a coalition government with fringe parties, which would bring the country closer to Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Robert Fico’s Slovakia in terms of its outlook on Ukraine, potentially stopping aid for Kyiv and becoming less enthusiastic about Czech membership in Western institutions.
While not in total alignment with Moscow’s positions, Prague would become more vocal on the need to immediately stop the war and aim for peace -– most likely on the Kremlin’s terms.
Expect less harsh rhetoric toward China as well.
Polling and political analyst Michael Ashcroft said in an analysis that the Czechs may join "what is from Kyiv’s point of view a worrying trend in Central and Eastern Europe, with the existing stance of the Hungarian and Slovakian governments and the new Polish president much less inclined to defend Ukrainian sovereignty."
"The consequences could include isolating Ukraine from Western European partners, disrupting military supplies and sowing further division in the alliance," he added.
Just as it did in Moldova -- where elections last weekend saw a massive Russian disinformation campaign try and swing voters away from pro-Europe parties -- the Kremlin has been looking to take advantage of the waning support for aid to Ukraine that has helped fuel Babis's rise back to prominence.
A Czech research group uncovered nearly 300 anonymous TikTok accounts aimed at amplifying pro-Russian narratives and backing radical parties in the final weeks of the election campaign.
The Center For Research Into Online Risks said in a statement on September 28 that Czech TikTok accounts with millions of followers "are systematically spreading pro-Russian propaganda and support for anti-system parties through manipulated engagement."
The center added that the accounts are not tied to a single political entity, instead "combining support for multiple anti-system parties simultaneously."
"The cumulative reach of these accounts is 5 to 9 million views per week, more than the combined official accounts of the leaders of the largest Czech political parties on TikTok," it said.
Coalition Choices
Analysts say the key thing to look out for now is which parties gain enough votes to enter parliament as Babis will likely need a coalition to govern.
Spolu (Together), an alliance of center-right parties that includes the incumbent Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s Civic Democrats is polling at around 20 percent, whereas the other parties of the current pro-Western coalition government Stan (Mayors and Independents) and the Pirates are predicted to end up with 10-12 percent each.
All of these parties have said that they aren’t interested in entering a coalition with ANO or even backing it with votes to pass legislation as a single-party minority government.
But this is preelection talk and the tune could very well change after the vote, especially amid growing fears that more radical coalition alternatives could derail the Czech Republic's pro-Western course. As junior coalition partners, they could demand key posts in the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry.
Secondly, there are factions in the current government, notably in the Civic Democrats, that share ANO’s political positions -- committed to NATO but weaker on EU membership and opposed to euro adoption and Brussels policies such as mandatory refugee quotas and the green deal.
But the Central European country could also change radically if Babis teams up with any of the current opposition parties that are more radical than ANO.
These include the far-right SPD, polling above 10 percent, as well as a smaller far-right outfit AUTO (Motorists for themselves) and the far-left Stacilo (Enough), both of which are expected to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to gain seats in parliament.
Governing with any of them would likely lead to a real rapprochement with Orban and Fico, both of whom have been critical of aid to Ukraine and are also in the vanguard of countries in Europe that continue to purchase Russian oil and natural gas despite Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A key figure in whatever comes after the election is pro-Western President Petr Pavel, who plays a role in government formation as well as foreign policy in general.
Pavel, a former senior NATO general, has made it clear that he won’t allow a government that strays too far from the Western course.
A Constant Fixture
Babis has been a constant fixture of Czech politics for the last 15 years, first serving as finance minister and deputy prime minister before leading the country from 2017 to 2021, as well as attempting to become president only to be trounced by Pavel in the 2023 election.
One of the country’s richest people, with considerable stakes in agribusiness and media, his time in the public spotlight has been dogged by legal disputes and accusations of conflicts of interest and EU subsidy fraud.
Yet, it’s also his business interests that many believe could keep him, and by extension the Czech Republic, anchored in the West as good relations between the Czech Republic and France, Germany, and Austria as well as the continued flow of EU agriculture and cohesion funds are more important than anything Beijing and Moscow can offer.
Babis has chartered a more populist course in recent years and was one of the creators of the biggest populist forces on the continent, Patriots for Europe, a political family also consisting of Orban’s Fidesz, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, Spain’s Vox, and Austria’s Freedom party. He has also voiced support for Fico’s Smer party even though they are not formally part of the Patriots for Europe alliance.
Rallying against all things Brussels, environmentalism, and immigration, they would also find sympathetic ears beyond Central Europe with right-wing populists of various hues on the rise or in power in many other Western capitals as well.
