Last month, Andrej Babiš braved the highest temperatures of the Czech summer to climb the Lysá Hora, the tallest peak in the Beskydy mountains, alongside dozens of supporters of his ANO party. “I expected it to be harder,” a beaming Babiš said on reaching the summit.
The politician is now hoping for an ascent of a different kind, seeking a return to the premiership in Czech parliamentary elections on the first weekend of October.
If successful, it would be a remarkably swift comeback for Babiš (71) the billionaire populist whose first term in office from 2017 to 2021 was marred by controversy over his extensive business interests. Critics accused him of abusing EU subsidies to bolster Agrofert, the sprawling agricultural conglomerate he founded and still owns, sparking street protests and legal battles against him.
But a return to power for his ANO party would also mark a reversal of sorts for the Czech Republic, an endorsement of the politics of Euroscepticism, anti-immigration and resistance to the establishment, after four years of more measured rule by a coalition led by the country’s centre-right politicians.
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Babiš has also long cultivated comparisons to fellow businessman turned politician Donald Trump, even going so far as to sell red baseball caps emblazoned with the words “Strong Czechia”. Like his American political stablemate, he has shifted steadily to the right since his first term, railing against migration and perceived attempts by Brussels to stifle Czech sovereignty.
Babiš’s return could result in a shift in the balance of power in Europe. First, it could revive the Visegrad alliance of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, which helped frustrate EU attempts to relocate migrants across the bloc during the immigration crisis of 2015, but broke down over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Karel Havlíček, ANO’s deputy leader, says a government led by his party could help restore Visegrad as a counterweight to the bureaucrats in Brussels: “It is better to discuss with the European Union as a platform of 60mn or 70mn people than only as one player like the Czech Republic.”
Critics say ANO’s election would also strengthen Russian president Vladimir Putin’s influence over Europe. Like Viktor Orban in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia, Babiš is opposed to increasing military support for Ukraine. Together with Orban’s Fidesz party, ANO set up last year a new European parliamentary grouping with the Rassemblement National of France and the Freedom party (FPÖ) of Austria, far-right parties with a history of support for Russia.
“The return of Babiš would confirm that voters, in what was once the Habsburg empire, continue to want strong leaders, who unfortunately believe their strength also comes from working together against Brussels, because they feel that they have been unfairly treated and kicked to the edges of the EU,” says Jan Rafael Lupoměský, a political analyst and former Czech presidential adviser.
But some veteran Czech rightwing politicians question how much Babiš has really shifted. “Has he changed his views because of a fundamental eye-opening or as a result of being in the opposition?” asks the former Czech president Václav Klaus, who repeatedly clashed with Brussels. “How much this change is serious or not, that should be the question now for everyone in the Czech Republic.”
Humility
In person, Babiš strikes a note of humility as he ponders whether he might be called upon to lead the country again.
“It’s really not important for me to be the prime minister, but it’s important for the people, from what I [understand],” he says, in an interview in July in an office building on the outskirts of Prague. “For me, if I’m not the prime minister, I could go and lie on the beach of [the Greek island] Ikaria.”
Yet former and current Babiš allies say he has no shortage of ambition, describing him as a tenacious, impatient and workaholic leader with a strong capacity to galvanise his troops.
Věra Jourová, a former European Commission vice-president who was among ANO’s early leaders, recalls his “bulldozer style” when the then government collapsed and forced a snap election in 2013, giving ANO its first opportunity to run for office.
She and others felt “close to a heart attack” because the early election was called when ANO was in its infancy, polling at around 1 per cent, but Babiš was “full of energy and in total euphoria”. In the end, ANO came a close second, “a shocking result which showed big hunger among Czechs for a radical change in politics”, Jourová says.
Babiš became deputy prime minister and finance minister. Even then, his business holdings were an issue: once Agrofert purchased a media group in 2013 that owned two of the country’s largest newspapers, journalists began calling him “Babisconi” after Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian leader who used his media empire as a platform for his political career.
To curtail the possible conflicts of interest surrounding Babiš, the Czech parliament introduced in 2016 legislation dubbed “Lex Babiš”, which led him to place Agrofert into trust funds during his first term.
But many Czechs were not convinced. In 2019 about 120,000 took to the streets of Prague to protest against his perceived influence on the judiciary and media. And in 2021, a European Commission audit into Agrofert and its EU subsidies found that he was violating the EU’s own conflict of interest legislation. He was ousted from office later that same year, and in 2023 lost a presidential run-off to former Nato commander Petr Pavel.
Yet today, his star is on the rise again. The latest opinion polls give ANO a lead of about 10 percentage points over the centre-right Spolu alliance led by prime minister Petr Fiala.
After divesting his media company in 2023, Babiš now attempts to cast his wealth and business career as evidence that he can clean the Czech political swamp. “For a country, it’s a good thing when rich people go into politics because other people who get in government are just interested in making money for themselves, causing widespread corruption,” he says.
“Some people think that I have gained from politics but instead I have lost a huge amount of money in politics: billions,” he says. “I can tell you it’s much easier to stay outside of politics, to just be an entrepreneur who is looking after his interests while influencing the parties, giving them money or giving them a nice place in the newspapers.”
Still, Agrofert remains under scrutiny. In June, a Czech high court reopened a fraud trial over EU subsidies used to build a leisure resort, overturning an earlier acquittal. Last month agriculture minister Marek Výborný said the government would demand Agrofert repay 5.1 billion korunas (€210 million) in allegedly illegal subsidies received during his earlier time in office. A smaller party, the Pirates, is accusing the authorities of acting too late and being too lenient, insisting that 10 billion korunas should be reclaimed from Agrofert.
Babiš has denied wrongdoing, dismissing the allegations and reimbursement claims as “inventions from Brussels and all these neo-communist pirates here”. Asked about his control over Agrofert if he returns to office, he replies: “If I come back, what I will do with my company this time is my problem and not yours. But yes, I’m preparing something in my head, of course.”
Scandal
Babiš and his party are rising as the government has become enmeshed in internal disputes and scandal.
The left-leaning Pirates quit the ruling coalition last September and Fiala then survived a parliamentary vote of confidence in June following revelations the justice ministry accepted a €40mn bitcoin donation from a convicted drug dealer. The justice minister resigned and an investigation into the scandal is still ongoing.
Babiš also attacks the government for attempting to raise the retirement age and cut social spending while expanding military support for Ukraine. If elected, Babiš plans to suspend an initiative led by Prague to buy more ammunition for Kyiv, as well as not deliver any other military equipment.
The campaign has been marked by vitriol, with Fiala portraying October’s vote as a choice between keeping Prague anchored within the EU and Nato, or allowing his opponent to side instead with pro-Russia governments in Hungary and Slovakia.
Anti-Babiš activists have plastered billboards showing Putin smiling at Babiš and other opposition politicians, with the slogan: “You’re doing it well, my children.” Babiš “helps Vladimir Putin, it’s very clear”, Fiala told the FT in March.
But Babiš says he has never spoken to Putin, unlike Orban and Fico, who have visited Moscow since Russia’s 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s assault was “a big mistake”, he says, but believes the Russian threat is overstated when compared with the resources of Nato forces. “I’m really not afraid of Putin, because we are already strong.”
As for Hungary’s leader, he describes Orban as a partner and ally rather than role model: “I asked Viktor what I should say when people ask me about us and he said that I should tell them that I’m definitely better than him in economics and finance,” Babiš says, with a wry smile.
A win for Babiš would also put another Trump admirer in power in central and eastern Europe, following Karol Nawrocki’s election as Polish president in June after receiving the Maga movement’s endorsement.
Yet his regard for the White House has limits. Babiš has at times used his defence of Czech sovereignty to distance himself from the US president. After Trump supporters stormed the US capitol building in 2021, Babiš removed his Trump-inspired red cap from his social media profile.
He says he would not meet Trump’s demands for Nato countries to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP because that is incompatible with his welfare spending goals: “If Trump says that I have to jump from the window, I will not jump,” he says.
By arguing that taxpayers’ money could be better spent than on building weapons stockpiles, Babiš could strain EU and Nato efforts to preserve unity on defence, which has been promoted by the Prague tandem formed by Fiala and Pavel, the president.
Still, there are obstacles to Babiš entering office. No party is projected to command a majority, meaning ANO would need coalition partners to govern, which he was unable to garner in 2021, even after ANO won the most parliamentary seats. His possible allies now range from communists to far-right parties, some of which advocate a referendum on exiting the EU.
At the same time, Pavel would remain president – with the power not only to veto legislation, but also to appoint the prime minister. Pavel said in June that he would seek legal advice over the implications of Babiš’s ongoing Agrofert courtroom battle. Pavel has also warned that he would not name a government leader who wanted to pull Prague out of Nato or the EU.
Still, the prospect of post-election political tensions and a delayed government formation has not rattled investors, nor have Babiš’s pledges to raise welfare and infrastructure spending while cutting taxes. Credit ratings agency Fitch predicted recently that “an ANO-led government would broadly adhere to prudent fiscal policy, despite the party’s populist rhetoric”.
The Czech unemployment rate of 2.7 per cent is the joint lowest in the EU, while the country’s GDP is set to grow 2.1 per cent this year, according to Fitch, which also expects Czech inflation to remain steady in coming years.
Unlike Hungary and Slovakia, which have opposed more EU sanctions on Moscow because they also remain dependent on Russian energy, Prague managed to end its imports of Russian oil last spring when it completed an infrastructure upgrade to get non-Russian oil via another pipeline connected to the Italian port of Trieste.
Despite this, the latest opinion polls suggest that the Babiš claims about Fiala’s economic mismanagement have resonated with voters.
“Fiala has not actually hurt our economic situation, but he has somehow lost support among the business community and left voters worried about economic stagnation, because his government has been muddling through rather than pushing forward innovation and big projects,” says Martin Ehl, chief analyst at Czech business daily Hospodářské Noviny.
Fiala has attempted to highlight the alleged conflicts and contradictions of a rival who claims to defend ordinary households while making an undisclosed purchase of a luxury villa on the French Riviera, which prompted a French money laundering investigation.
Last November, Fiala attacked Agrofert by trading accusations with Babiš over the rising cost of butter, which Fiala blamed on Agrofert helping maintain an agricultural oligopoly. Babiš accused Fiala of spreading lies. “Anti-Babišism is clouding your brain, Prime Minister,” he wrote on X.
Radical
Should ANO form a government, the question is how radical it will be. “Babiš is not a friend,” says Klaus, the former Czech president who turned Prague into a Eurosceptic holdout when in office, particularly when he sought to scuttle the EU’s Lisbon treaty. “But he’s now visibly better than Fiala on the main issues, which are the EU, the war in Ukraine and the green deal, to summarise it simply.”
Havlíček, the party’s deputy leader, says ANO’s ideological shift is genuine and also a response to political currents in Brussels. “ANO has changed but that’s because the European Union is absolutely changing,” he says.
But he says not to read too much into its new alliances; the party joined with more rightwing parties in the European Parliament “not to have a common policy towards Ukraine or Russia”, he says , “but the pillar of our co-operation is about migration, energy and climate”.
Most analysts see Babiš’s evolution as political rather than ideological. “Babiš, who was once a supporter of the EU, found out in office that he could actually not benefit from Brussels but instead face a big fight with the European Commission over his business interests,” says Lupoměský, the Czech political analyst. “Above everything else, he’s a businessman, nothing like Orban with his vision of a greater Hungary.”
For all his invective on Brussels and Ukraine, those who know Babiš well say he is a political weather vane. He believes that policies should be shaped by “whatever the polls show”, says Pavel Telička, a former Babiš adviser. “If in two or three years’ time the demand [from voters] is different, he will shift again.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
