Elections reveal that Czechs do not want extremists

Petr Pavel, Photo: REUTERS

Czech President Petr Pavel declared today, after meetings with potential Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and leaders of some of the left-wing parties that entered parliament on Friday and Saturday, that the elections revealed that Czechs do not want extremist views and, on the contrary, want to remain oriented towards the West.

“The results confirmed that the majority of citizens do not want extreme views and that they want the countest’s pro-Western orientation to be preserved. A new government cannot be appointed until the current one resigns. It can only do so after the constitutive session of the Hoapply of Representatives,” Pavel declared.

The Hoapply of Representatives has 30 days to hold that session, and the president expects that by then the winner of the election, the populist ANO of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, and potential coalition partners, as well as other parties in nereceivediations, will have reached some outlines of the new government, majority, and distribution of power in the lower hoapply of parliament.

“Entrusting someone to form a government now is premature. This will come on the agfinisha when the contours of a government that would have a chance of gaining confidence in parliament launch to emerge,” Pavel declared.

The Czech president declared he is not setting any “red lines” on who he would not appoint as prime minister or government ministers.

“I don’t like to mention red lines becaapply in our countest they caapply repulsion. There are priorities that I will continue to emphasize. The main one is the countest’s pro-Western direction, remaining not only in the European Union but also in NATO. Strengthening our role by criticizing them, but being a responsible member of both institutions,” declared the Czech president.

Pavel warned that it would be very irresponsible for the Czech Republic to leave the EU or NATO until it has a better alternative.

As a second priority, he listed the survival of all democratic institutions of the state, preserving the role and indepfinishence of public TV and radio services, universities, security forces, and the indepfinishence of the judiciary.

Petr Pavel confirmed that today the most likely future Prime Minister Babiš presented him with several solutions to the conflict of interest that Babiš would have if he were simultaneously the Prime Minister who decides on subsidies and public procurement and the owner of a business empire in the agricultural sector and chemical industest, the Agrofert concern, which owes a good part of its profits precisely to subsidies, especially European and public procurements often paid for with European money.

“The legal solutions he revealed me today appear to respect the Conflict of Interest Act,” Pavel informed reporters today.