Between the first and second rounds of the upcoming presidential election, in which former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš is running, his ANO party will call a vote of no-confidence in the government.
Czech government coalition leaders say an opposition ANO party call for a vote of no-confidence in the government is linked party leader Babiš’s campaign.
Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) said the proposed vote was intended to seize media space between the first and second rounds of the presidential election on the assumption that Babiš will reach the run-off. ANO rejects this interpretation.
Deputy Prime Minister Marian Jurečka of the Christian Democrats said senior ANO MP Alena Schillerová had said only a month ago that the party would not call a no-confidence vote and he did not see what had changed in the interim.
The coalition government has a solid majority in the lower house (108 out of 200 seats), meaning such a vote would be highly unlikely to pass. It will therefore probably suffer the same fate as the first vote in September last year when the opposition tried to oust the government of Petr Fiala (ODS) for the first time.
The official reason for the upcoming vote, according to ANO, is that the government is not paying enough attention to important issues such as the energy crisis, inflation, or the shortage of medicine.
The first round of the presidential election starts this Friday. Czech bookmakers have made Petr Pavel the favourite to succeed Miloš Zeman as president. The former head of the Czech Army’s odds has firmed to 1.5 to 1.
Babiš is the second favourite with 3.4 to 1. Economist and academic Danuše Nerudová, whose chances have dropped to 15 to 1 according to the bookmakers, is not expected to advance to the second round, which is scheduled for two weeks later.
(Ondřej Plevák | EURACTIV.cz)
Source: euractiv.com
