My foreign friends, blog readers, and social media followers have recently been asking me what has happened to Czechia when they see top representatives of the new government aligning themselves with Russian collaborators like Orbán and Fico.
Elections were held in the Czechia, overwhelmingly won by the populist movement ANO. It won by promising everything to everyone, fully aware that the average Czech voter is, frankly, of rather dull intellect. The Czech population is ageing, and the older generation — the backbone of ANO’s electorate — often nostalgically recalls the days of real socialism, when they didn’t have to worry about anything because the Communist Party and the government took care of it all. In exchange, they willingly gave up their own opinions and sacrificed their freedom, grazing contentedly behind barbed wire in the prison called Czechoslovakia.
As the population ages, every tiny pension increase offered by populists is enough for many to sacrifice the future of their children just as readily as they once surrendered their rights and personal freedoms. ANO is led by a former agent of the communist secret police, now a billionaire businessman of Slovak origin, Andrej Babiš. Babiš is being prosecuted for subsidy fraud, having illegally drawn 2 million EUR from the European Union for his real‑estate project Čapí hnízdo. But because he became an MP and later prime minister, he is protected by parliamentary immunity and cannot be convicted — unless the Chamber of Deputies were to hand him over, which will not happen, as his movement and its coalition partners currently hold a majority.
Because ANO could not achieve a parliamentary majority on its own, it had to join forces with other political parties. One of them is SPD.
This coalition consists of SPD, Motorists,Trikolóra, Svobodní and PRO. SPD itself won 7.78% in the election which is only 2.78% above the threshold required to enter parliament. This party can, without exaggeration, be described as commercial fascists. It is led by Tomio Okamura, who is of Japanese‑Korean‑Czech origin and is known for his disgustingly racist statements and positions. Yes, you read that correctly. But he does not do it out of conviction. He does it because it helps him appeal to a sizeable base of frustrated, mostly uneducated morons.
Since the state pays roughly 4 EUR per vote, with around 450,000 votes this adds up to a very comfortable sum. It is therefore no surprise that although he draws support mainly from the socially weaker, he himself after many years in politics drives an Aston Martin and recently completed the construction of his luxury villa. Tomio Okamura became Speaker of Parliament, which — just like in Babiš’s case — shielded him from prosecution for racially motivated hate crimes. His first act after assuming office was to remove the Ukrainian flag from the building of the Czech Parliament.
Another party in this coalition is Motorists.
This is a relatively new political entity presenting itself as traditionally conservative and Eurosceptic. Its central figure is influencer Filip Turek, who was, quite surprisingly, elected to the European Parliament in the last EU elections. He is known for his fondness for Nazi symbolism. He has been photographed several times giving the Nazi salute. He enjoys posting racist pseudo‑jokes on social media — mostly very stupid and disgusting.
In the past, he also threatened the Saudi ambassador to the Czech Republic during a dispute over a girl, placing empty bullet casings on the diplomat’s car. He is also under investigation for violence he allegedly committed against his former girlfriend. Filip Turek is the Motorists’ nominee for Minister of Foreign Affairs (the president has so far refused to appoint him).
It is also worth mentioning that this party is significantly funded by Richard Chlad, another billionaire who made his fortune in slot machines business and now works in real estate. He was once a close associate of Radovan Krejčíř, the most notorious figure of Czech organized crime, who fled the country and settled in South Africa, where he became the ruler of Johannesburg’s underworld within a few years. In 2016, a local court sentenced him to 35 years in prison for attempted murder, kidnapping, torture, drug trafficking and other crimes. The murders that occurred around him could not be proven.
The remaining parties in this coalition are more or less marginal — mostly far‑right groups with a fondness for conspiracy theories and spreading disinformation.
ANO is probably the most moderate of this coalition, but the entire current government is more or less united by admiration for Trump, hostility toward refugees, the Green Deal, the European Union, and a clear inclination toward Russia. The confident Czechia of recent years is gone. It’s retreating back into the pen of certainties and cheap illusions.