The largest protests since to fall of communism rock the Czech Republic

This weekend, the Czech Republic saw some of its largest protests since the fall of communism in 1989.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who has been implicated in an alleged fraud and is also subject to a conflict of interest investigation by the EU, but has so far refused to step down.

Organisers said more than 250,000 people attended the protests, however, the figures could not be independently verified.

Who is organising the march?

The demonstrations were started by a group called Million Moments for Democracy (Milion Chvilek), which is led by students. 

The protests, now in their ninth week, saw crowds of 120,000 on June 5, which was one of the first major protests.

Million Moments for Democracy, in a series of demands on its website, has called on the prime minister to resign from his post due to corruption allegations and accuse him of being an agent of the communist period, amongst other things.

Why are people protesting?

Million Moments for Democracy wants to get a million signatures from people in 100 days, calling for Babis to resign.

However, in the most recent European Union elections in 2019, the prime minister’s party came first in the polls, even increasing its share of the votes from 2014.

In the 2017 legislative elections Babis' party again won the elections with almost 30 percent of the vote and was a clear winner by a large margin.

Babis’ party campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, however, allegations that have been levelled at him have challenged his rhetoric.

The prime minister faces a criminal investigation for allegedly abusing EU subsidies more than 10 years ago to the tune of more than $2.2 million.

The EU carried out an investigation only for the report to be mysteriously leaked ahead of time.

The prime minister called the report "an attack on the Czech Republic" and refused to return any money, claiming that he hasn’t done anything wrong.