Czech election tests EU unity as Babiš leads polls

Czech voters go to the polls on 3 and 4 October for a parliamentary election that Brussels is watching with unusual intensity. The outcome could install a third Eurosceptic government in central Europe, alongside Viktor Orbán's Hungary and Robert Fico's Slovakia, with direct consequences for the European Union's migration policy, its climate legislation and the bloc's collective support for Ukraine.

No party is expected to win a majority in the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies. The populist ANO movement, led by former prime minister Andrej Babiš, has held a consistent lead in polling at just above 30%. The governing centre-right Spolu alliance trails at roughly 21%. Between them sit a cluster of smaller parties, the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) on 12%, the liberal Mayors and Independents (STAN) on 11%, the Pirates on 9%, the far-left Stačilo! alliance on 7% and the upstart Motorists for Themselves on just over 5%, any combination of which could decide the next government.

Babiš leads but coalition arithmetic remains uncertain

ANO finished first in the 2021 election but was kept out of power when Spolu, STAN and the Pirates formed a five-party coalition. All three have ruled out working with ANO, SPD or Stačilo! this time as well. That leaves Babiš with a narrower path: he would need to assemble a majority from the far right, the far left, or both. Analysts consider a formal coalition including both SPD and Stačilo! inherently unstable, given their opposing ideological roots. Babiš is thought to prefer a single-party minority government backed by confidence-and-supply agreements with one or more of the radical parties, provided they clear the 5% threshold.

The electoral system allocates seats proportionally within 14 regional constituencies. Single parties must clear 5% of the national vote; two-party alliances need 8%; groupings of three or more require 11%. Twenty-eight parties have registered, though only a handful are expected to enter parliament. Voting runs across two days, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, a Czech peculiarity that usually delivers near-complete results by late Saturday.

From centrist startup to populist vehicle

Babiš, 71, founded ANO in 2011 as a centrist, pro-European technocratic movement. A billionaire whose Agrofert conglomerate spans agriculture, food processing and chemicals, he served as finance minister and then prime minister from 2017 to 2021. In opposition he has repositioned the party sharply: capping energy prices, lowering the pension age, cutting personal and corporate taxes, and pledging to fight the EU's green agenda and the migration pact agreed in 2023. He has also said he would end the "Czech initiative" that channels western-funded artillery ammunition to Ukraine, and has left the door open to alliances with parties opposed to further military aid.

That trajectory mirrors a broader central European pattern in which business-friendly centrist parties have adopted nationalist and Eurosceptic rhetoric to capture working-class voters alienated by inflation and cultural change. Whether Babiš would govern as a pragmatic deal-maker or an ideological disruptor remains the central question for EU partners.

Fiala's record and the cost-of-living backdrop

Prime Minister Petr Fiala's three-party Spolu alliance can point to a concrete fiscal achievement: the general government deficit has been cut from 5% of GDP when they took office in late 2021 to 2% in 2024, meeting the EU's Stability and Growth Pact threshold. Defence spending has been raised toward the NATO 2% target. Yet the government is widely perceived as out of touch. Only 15% of Czechs told pollsters they were satisfied with the political situation. A survey in 2023 found fewer than half the population felt better off than before the 1989 Velvet Revolution that toppled communism.

High energy prices, driven by the loss of Russian gas and the EU's emissions trading system, have dominated household budgets. Fiala's attempts to frame the election as a defence of liberal democracy and the rule of law have struggled to cut through. His coalition partners, STAN and the Pirates, both favour euro adoption, a position that polls suggest lacks majority support among Czech voters.

The far-left and far-right alternatives

On the left, Stačilo! (Enough!) bundles the once-dominant Social Democrats with the unreformed Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the last of its kind in central Europe. Its platform includes referendums on EU and NATO withdrawal, nationalisation of strategic industries and a halt to arms shipments to Ukraine. On the right, SPD has absorbed three smaller radical parties and campaigns on anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine-aid lines. The Motorists, a single-issue protest party born from opposition to low-emission zones and fuel taxes, could hold the balance if they clear 5%.

Both extremes are Moscow-friendly in rhetoric, though their domestic agendas diverge. Their combined polling, roughly 19%, represents a significant anti-system bloc. If both enter parliament, any ANO-led government would likely depend on at least one of them, giving them leverage over foreign policy and judicial appointments.

Presidential veto power complicates government formation

President Petr Pavel, a former NATO general elected in 2023, has introduced a new variable. He has stated publicly that he will not appoint ministers who advocate leaving the EU or NATO, nor will he place far-left or far-right MPs in charge of security, defence or foreign affairs. The Czech constitution gives the president the power to appoint ministers on the prime minister's proposal, but does not explicitly grant a veto on policy grounds. A standoff between a Babiš government and Pavel could trigger a constitutional crisis, prolonging uncertainty.

Pavel's intervention is unprecedented in post-communist Czech politics, where presidents have generally confined themselves to ceremonial roles. It reflects alarm in the pro-Western establishment that a parliamentary majority could form behind a government hostile to the country's international anchors.

What the polls suggest about the electorate

The fragmentation, seven parties polling above 5%, reflects a society split along multiple axes: urban versus rural, university-educated versus vocational, beneficiaries of the post-1989 transition versus those who feel left behind. Prague and the major cities lean strongly toward Spolu, STAN and the Pirates. Smaller towns and the industrial north-east favour ANO and SPD. The Communist rump in Stačilo! retains strength in the same northern districts where heavy industry once dominated.

Turnout will be decisive. In 2021 it reached 65%, the highest since 1998. A repeat would benefit the established parties; a drop-off would amplify the protest vote. The two-day voting window, introduced during the pandemic and kept for convenience, may boost participation among shift workers and the elderly.

Brussels watches for a third central European agitator

For the European Commission and the European Council, a Czech government that joins Hungary and Slovakia in challenging EU consensus would complicate decision-making across several dossiers. The migration pact, finalised after years of negotiation, requires implementation by all member states. The EU's 2040 climate target and the phase-out of combustion engines face revision talks where a Czech veto could matter. Most immediately, the Czech initiative, a multinational artillery procurement scheme for Ukraine coordinated by Prague, would lose its political champion.

Diplomats in Brussels note that Babiš, unlike Orbán or Fico, has a business empire deeply integrated in EU markets and subsidy streams. That may constrain his willingness to pick fights. But his campaign rhetoric has already shifted the Overton window: issues once confined to the fringe, leaving the EU, rejecting NATO, halting Ukraine aid, are now debated in prime-time television debates.