Mogul PM tipped to win as Czech vote gets under way

A populist billionaire at odds with the European Union who featured in the Pandora Papers has been tipped to win tight two-day Czech elections as the first day of voting ended on Friday.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis is seeking a second straight victory for his populist ANO party despite his lukewarm handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his brushes with the law.

The 67-year-old food, chemicals and media mogul is facing police charges over alleged EU subsidy fraud and the bloc's dismay over his conflict of interest as a businessman and a politician.

Last weekend, the Pandora Papers investigation showed he had used money from his offshore firms to finance the purchase of property in southern France in 2009, including a chateau.

He slammed the allegations as a smear campaign, and opinion polls still peg the former communist as the election favourite, with support reaching up to 30 percent.

Voting at a Prague school on a sunny Friday afternoon, teacher Jakub Kratochvil told AFP he wanted change.

"I want Babis to quit. I want a more transparent democracy, I want to get rid of his criminal cases, and I want international respect for us. It has been a shame so far," he said.

Another Prague voter, Alexandr Slaby, also called for a replacement, saying laws adopted by the Babis government were "obviously tailored to his needs and those of his companies rather than the people.”

But, as he cast his ballot in the northern town of Lovosice, Babis called for "stability for this unstable period.”

"We should not change the government now," he said.

Polling stations will reopen at 0600 GMT on Saturday and close at 1200 GMT, with the results expected later on Saturday.

READ MORE: 'Pandora Papers' expose hidden assets of politicians, govts, celebs

'Textbook populism'

"The key question is whether the populist policy will prevail over traditional and more responsible politicians," said Tomas Lebeda, an analyst at Palacky University in the eastern city of Olomouc.

Babis's main rivals are two groupings, one comprising the anti-establishment Pirate Party with the centrist Mayors and Independents, and the other being a three-party centre-right coalition called Together.

Babis leads a minority government with the left-wing Social Democrats, tacitly backed by the Communist Party which ruled the former totalitarian Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989.

"ANO pursues the type of populism we know from textbooks – a strong leader seeking to split society and create a tribal identity," Lebeda told AFP.

Communists out?

The Czech economy, heavily dependent on car production and exports to the eurozone which the EU member of 10.7 million is yet to join, is on the mend after the Covid-19 lockdowns.

But the pandemic and increases in pensions and public sector wages, recently approved by Babis's cabinet, have made the public finance gap soar.

"He has extremely burdened the state budget to hand out the perks and he keeps saying he won't raise taxes. I would call this fiscal populism," Lebeda said.

Other parties to reckon with include the anti-Muslim far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement led by Tokyo-born entrepreneur Tomio Okamura.

The Social Democrats and the Communists are in play, but they may fail to reach the five percent threshold for parliament entry, according to recent polls.

"I want a government that will not run a debt, and I want the Communists to be ousted," said Prague voter Zdena Svobodova.

It will be up to the pro-Russian President Milos Zeman, Babis's old ally, to tap the new prime minister.

"He will do his best to keep ANO in power," said Josef Mlejnek, an analyst at Charles University in Prague.

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