Democracy, Liberal-Style: Czech Courts Move to Strip Andrej Babis of Immunity

Almost immediately after the sweeping election victory of Andrej Babis, leader of the ANO movement and close ally of Viktor Orban, attacks began against the politician and his potential coalition partner, Tomio Okamura.

Andrej Babis, leader of the ANO movement (Photo: Anadolu/AFP/Lukas Kabon)

A mere few days after Babis’s triumph, Czech courts suddenly sprang into action: proceedings were launched to strip the politician of his parliamentary immunity — just days after his party’s resounding election win.

Andrej Babis’s centrist party won the Czech parliamentary elections (Photo: Anadolu/AFP/Lukas Kabon)

The same fate may await Tomio Okamura, whose party could become a coalition partner to Babis.

Balazs Nemeth, spokesperson for Fidesz's parliamentary group, reacted to the news on social media:

In the Czech Republic, just a few days after the patriotic Andrej Babis’s election victory, the courts suddenly remembered that they should request to lift the immunity of Babis (!) and the leader (!) of a party considered a potential coalition partner.

Babis is facing a renewed investigation into a more than 20-year-old case concerning the alleged misuse of EU funds connected to one of his companies. Okamura, meanwhile, is being targeted because his campaign posters during last year’s local elections supposedly "offended liberal sensitivities."

Babis: There Is No Case

Two years ago, a Prague court acquitted Andrej Babis of embezzlement charges related to EU subsidies. The politician had previously been accused of unlawfully obtaining 50 million Czech crowns in EU funding through one of his companies, but the court found no evidence of any crime.

According to Balazs Nemeth, the current attack on the right-wing politician is no coincidence.

Liberals in the Czech Republic and Brussels were shocked that another patriotic head of government could come to power who, in alliance with Viktor Orban, would oppose their pro-war, pro-immigration, and anti-European policies. Within a few days, the machinery was already in motion to try to bring down the nascent Babis government with the help of independent courts.

 It is especially cynical that all this was happening in the very same week when the European Parliament invoked parliamentary immunity to save a far-left terrorist from prison, the spokesman added.

This is liberal democracy in action. Go Babis! Go Patriots!

concluded Balazs Nemeth in his post.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Czech ANO party leader Andrej Babis, and Herbert Kickl, chair of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO), at a joint press conference during the signing of a party agreement to establish the right-wing ‘Patriots for Europe’ alliance (Photo: APA/AFP/Alex Halada)

They Are Afraid of the Patriots

Babis’s ANO movement won a decisive victory in the Czech elections, giving new momentum to the cooperation of patriotic forces across Central Europe. In a post-election statement to Magyar Nemzet, Babis stated that the  Patriots will continue to strengthen their resistance against the policies of the European Commission.

He emphasized that his goal is to weaken the Brussels coalition, which, in his view, "is leading Europe in an increasingly unfavorable direction."

Babis’s victory creates a new opportunity for the Visegrad Four countries and other patriotic forces to amplify their voice in Europe,  and to make clear that the peoples of Central Europe reject Brussels’ double standards.

Cover photo: Andrej Babis, leader of the ANO movement (Photo: Anadolu/AFP/Lukas Kabon)