Andrej Babiš, the Slovak-born billionaire founder and owner of Czech food giant Agrofert, has confirmed speculation that he will form a Czech political initiative that will promote candidates for parliament campaigning essentially on an anti-corruption ticket; for the moment, he will remain the head and sponsor of the civic group ANO 2011, but is not himself seeking to run for elected office.
“Our goal is to achieve a more just and functional society, with the rule of law. And we can only achieve a clear victory in the next parliamentary elections with a civil movement made up of credible and independent people from the Czech Republic,” the initiative — which Babiš acknowledges could become a political party itself — says on its website. In Czech, the acronym ANO stands for “action by dissatisfied citizens,” and also means “yes.”
Babiš’ Agrofert group last year made a profit Kč 6 billion and is the largest private sector employer in the Czech Republic country. He is ranked as the third-richest Czech citizen, behind PPF Group’s Petr Kellner and New World Resources’ (NWR) Zdeněk Bakala. “I am offering to lead this movement without remuneration. I will pay all costs associated with this initiative,” he said, as cited by the news server Aktuálně.cz.
‘I employ thousands of people in my companies in the Czech Republic and pay hundreds of millions of crowns in taxes, and I’m angry just like you.’
“I employ thousands of people in my companies in the Czech Republic, and pay hundreds of millions of crowns in taxes, and I’m angry just like you,” Babiš said, referring to government waste, corruption and mismanagement — themes he has touched upon extensively in recent weeks — and calling the state under the current government “dysfunctional.”
“By managing the state as one would a business, we can rid it of corruption, incompetence and indifference of some public officials and eventually save hundreds of billions of crowns that can be used for the benefit of our citizens,” Babiš said.
ANO 2011’s partners include Society Against Corruption (VPK) and the Endowment Fund Against Corruption (NFPK), founded by Karel Janeček, a mathematician, financier and trader (who has also denied personal political ambitions). The goals of the endowment are: to support the exposure of corrupt practices in public administration by bestowing awards; to support projects that expose corruption; to create and maintain databases of corruption cases in public administration; to support and contribute to building ethical values in a democratic society.
Babiš said that among current MPs and Senators there were “decent people” who would like to participate in the movement. Aktuálně.cz reported that the Agrofert boss has already begun to approach a number of politicians about possible collaboration, including Senator Alena Dernerová with the movement Severočeši.cz and Ostrava mayor Petr Kajnar of the center-left Social Democrats (ČSSD).
The billionaire businessman has traditionally been close to ČSSD but is also said to have good relations with some of the patrons of the main government party, the Civic Democrats (ODS), while his personal views on the European Union put him on the same wavelength as euro-skeptic President Václav Klaus (an ODS co-founder).
Whatever his political leanings, recent polls show the majority of Czechs are concered about the future. In an October survey by the STEM polling agency, half of the respondents said the country is not going in the right direction and that they are worried about what the coming year will bring.
