Following the
2017 Czech parliamentary election to the
Chamber of Deputies, in which
ANO won with 29% of the vote, and won 78 out of 200 seats, President
Miloš Zeman asked Babiš to form a government. The
Civic Democratic Party and other parties refused to join a coalition government with Babiš, citing the ongoing criminal investigation into alleged EU subsidy fraud. As a result, on 27 October 2017, Babiš announced that he would try to form a
minority government. Both
Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia expressed their willingness to join the government, but were rejected by Babiš. On 6 December 2017, Babiš was appointed Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He assumed office on 13 December 2017, when his government took full control of the
executive government. He became the first prime minister of the Czech Republic to be charged with a crime by the
Czech police and prosecutor, as well as both the oldest and the wealthiest prime minister in the country's history, and the first prime minister from a party other than
ODS and
ČSSD. During his first days in office, he attended the
European Council summit dealing with fiscal responsibilities,
Brexit, and the
2015 European migrant crisis, while also speaking on the phone with new Polish Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki about the
European Commission's
invocation of the Article 7. His government carried out personnel changes at the ministries,
České dráhy, and the
Správa železnic (railway infrastructure administration). On 16 January 2018, Babiš's cabinet lost a
vote of no confidence in the
Chamber of Deputies by 117 votes to 78. In February 2018, his cabinet approved the
European Fiscal Compact and sent it to the Chamber of Deputies for further approval. They also proposed changes to the Civil Service Act, which has been the subject of controversy since it was passed in 2015 by
Bohuslav Sobotka's government, in which Babiš served as Minister of Finance. , 16 May 2018 Despite losing the confidence vote, Babiš's administration continued to carry out personnel changes, meeting with criticism from the opposition. Minister of Health
Adam Vojtěch fired
Svatopluk Němeček, a former Minister and head of the University Hospital in
Ostrava, as well as the director of the
Bulovka Hospital. Minister of Industry and Trade and Minister of Interior
Lubomír Metnar fired the heads of
CzechInvest and
Czech Post, respectively. , 24 October 2019 On 6 June 2018, President Zeman appointed Andrej Babiš as prime minister for the second time, calling on him to present him with a proposed list of members of the government. Babiš was sworn in by President Zeman for the second time on 27 June 2018, as the head of a
minority government formed from ANO and ČSSD representatives. Zeman refused to appoint ČSSD deputy and MEP
Miroslav Poche as Minister of Foreign Affairs, so he was replaced by ČSSD party chairman and Interior Minister
Jan Hamáček. ČSSD took five seats in the government, and ANO took ten. On 10 July, the two parties signed a coalition agreement.
Taťána Malá was appointed Minister of Justice for ANO but resigned 13 days later following allegations of plagiarism in her diploma theses and conflict of interest. Babiš briefly considered consulting with Zeman about the choice for a replacement minister, but in the face of vigorous opposition from opposition parties, he instead nominated Jan Kněžínek, who was sworn in by Zeman on 10 July. On 12 July 2018, shortly after midnight, Babiš's government won a confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 105–91, with the external support of the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which lasted until April 2021. This government was the first since the
Fall of Communism to rely on
confidence and supply from the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. ,
Angela Merkel,
Emmanuel Macron, and other world leaders to mark the 75th anniversary of
D-Day in June 2019 Babiš also headed the Government Council for Coordinating the Fight against Corruption, with subsequent approval by the Government. Since the establishment of the council in 2014, this post had always been held by a minister, most recently Minister of Justice Robert Pelikán. After his departure, however, the new coordinator of the fight against corruption was not entrusted, and the management of the council fell to the prime minister. This move was criticized by opposition parties as a conflict of interest. Jan Hamáček stated that it was the Prime Minister's right and he would not act on the issue. In March 2018, Babiš ordered three Russian diplomats to leave the country in a show of solidarity with the United Kingdom after a former Russian double agent
Sergei Skripal was poisoned in
Salisbury. Under Babiš, the Czech government expelled over 80 Russian diplomats and
resident spies from
its embassy in Prague following the disclosure of Russian involvement in the
2014 Vrbětice explosions, leading to a major diplomatic escalation and
strained relations with Russia. The
Senate inquiry into the events later found that his government's "uncoordinated response seriously threatened the
national security" and "failed to gather support from our
allies." In June 2018, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war
expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. Babiš responded: "I reject this characterisation – especially when we recall the horrors of
Heydrich,
Lidice,
Ležáky and the killing of our paratroopers. I have the feeling that there is some internal political struggle in Germany now, and it is very unfortunate that old wounds are opening because of it." On 11 November 2018, Babiš represented the Czech Republic in a ceremony at the
Arc de Triomphe in Paris to mark the
centenary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended the First World War. The ceremony was attended by world leaders, including US President
Donald Trump, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, and Russian President
Vladimir Putin. Babiš's response to
COVID-19 pandemic was considered by many to be disorganized and chaotic, with the pandemic resulting in more than 35,000 deaths during his leadership. , Hungarian Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán, and Polish Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki in Brussels, 24 September 2020 Babiš expressed support for the
2020 Belarusian protests against the Belarusian government and President
Alexander Lukashenko, and called for the
2020 Belarusian presidential election to be repeated and for the EU to respond strongly. Speaking at the
COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Babiš denounced the
European Green Deal, saying that the European Union "can achieve nothing without the participation of the largest polluters such as China or the USA that are responsible for 27 and 15 percent, respectively, of global CO2 emissions." Babiš was unsuccessful in his attempt to remain prime minister after the
2021 election. With no path to a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, he conceded to
Petr Fiala, who succeeded him as prime minister on 17 December 2021. Babiš's time in office was marked by a rocky relationship with the
European Commission due to his alleged
conflict of interest and involvement of his companies in EU subsidies, as well as an informal power alliance with President
Miloš Zeman and the
Communist Party – both of which triggered heavy criticism from the opposition, activists and the media. His government adopted policies focused on raising the retirement age and reducing
pensions, while increasing
child tax credits and the salaries of senior politicians. It implemented
electronic toll collection on highways and rolled out
electronic identification cards for citizens to access
e-government services. The Czech
government deficit in 2020 was 367.4 billion Czech crowns, the largest in the history of the Czech Republic. At the time Babiš was leaving office, his approval rating among the general public was 30%.
Storks Nest affair In November 2018,
Seznam Zprávy television aired an interview with Babiš's son (born 1983) in which he alleged that he had been kidnapped by an associate of his father to obstruct the corruption inquiry relating to the
Stork's Nest Farm. Babiš Junior was quoted as saying he had been held in
Crimea,
Kaliningrad,
Moscow, and
Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine, to stop him from giving a statement to the police about his involvement in the case. Prime Minister Babiš denied the kidnapping, but admitted that his son had entered Crimea, among other places, also adding that his son allegedly had
schizophrenia. This has since been denied by Babiš Junior, who stated that his schizophrenia was a false diagnosis and he is no longer taking his pills, though he did not support his statement with medical evidence. In response to the story, the opposition called on Babiš to resign on 13 November 2018. On 15 November 2018, the Senate adopted a resolution that Babiš was unacceptable in the government while the investigation into the Stork's Nest case was continuing, but the same day, President Zeman stated that if the Chamber of Deputies voted the government down, he would again ask Babiš to form a new cabinet. On 16 November 2018, Babiš stated that he would not resign. On 23 November 2018, Babiš and his government survived a vote of no confidence, as the Communists voted with the government and ČSSD deputies left the chamber. Several public demonstrations were organised in response to the allegations, especially in larger cities. One of the biggest demonstrations, entitled "Demisi" (Resign), took place on 17 November at the statue of
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in Hradčanské Square in Prague, organised by the campaign group "A Million Moments for Democracy". The same evening on
Wenceslas Square a Concert for the Future was held, protesting against Babiš as well as marking the national occasion of 17 November. An event supporting Babis was held in Klárov, with around 40 participants. In early September 2019, supervising prosecutor Jaroslav Šaroch proposed that the charges against all defendants in the Stork's Nest affair be dropped. The Prague Public Prosecutor's Office supported the proposal. The prosecutors argued that the Stork's Nest Farm met the definition of an SME at the time of the application, and therefore no offence had been committed. Prague City Prosecutor Martin Erazim said that "Even if, as a result of the Court's subsequent decade of practice, it would be inferred that Stork's Nest Farm did not meet the definition of 'small and medium-sized enterprise' at the time of the 2008 grant application, I do not consider it possible to blame anyone for a possible incorrect assessment of such a legal question at the time of the application for a subsidy 11 years ago." Pavel Zeman, the Prosecutor General, has the authority to change this verdict. Another anti-government protest was organized by
A Million Moments for Democracy on 16 November 2019, one day before the 30th anniversary of the
Velvet Revolution. Police estimated some 250,000 people attended the demonstration, a similar turnout to the June 2019 protests.
Visit to the United States Donald Trump shake hands in the
White House in March 2019 On 17 February 2019, at the fifth ANO
party conference, Babis was re-elected chairman unopposed, with 206 votes from the 238 delegates present. Babiš was received by President Trump on 7 March 2019 at the White House in Washington, D.C., on his first official visit to the United States. Before the start of bilateral talks, Babiš stated that the alliance between the United States and the Czech Republic had been going on for 100 years since the establishment of Czechoslovakia. The American media was critical of Babiš, comparing him to Trump, and giving some details of his domestic issues. Deb Riechmann noted that Babiš, like Trump, was a wealthy businessman, and said that both "rode into office on a nationalist-style campaign." Babis praised Trump's State of the Union Address and even paraphrased his rhetoric ("Make the Czech Republic great again"). In an interview Trump praised the Czech economy, army, people, and good business relations with the US.
Anti-government protests in Prague At the end of April 2019, Jan Kněžínek, ANO Minister of Justice, resigned. Babiš nominated
Marie Benešová, who had also held the post of Minister of Justice in the government of
Jiří Rusnok, as his replacement. Concerns about the possible impact of Benešová's appointment on the progress of the Stork's Nest case triggered further public protests, again organized primarily by the Million Moments Association. They intensified in early June, when the preliminary results of two European Union audits were published, finding that Babiš remained in conflict of interest even after the transfer of Agrofert shares into trust funds, and therefore, Agrofert was not entitled to receive European subsidies. According to estimates from the organizers, 120,000 people participated in the demonstration on Wenceslas Square on 4 June 2019. On 3 June 2019, Babiš met in Prague with the Burmese leader,
Aung San Suu Kyi, with whom he spoke about economic cooperation, education and health development. Babiš praised her efforts to democratize Myanmar. On 23 June 2019, A Million Moments for Democracy organized another protest against Prime Minister Babiš, in response to his criminal charges and alleged frauds. According to the EU, he has a conflict of interest. About 250,000 people attended the rally, which was the biggest in the country since the
Velvet Revolution in 1989. in August 2020 ==Presidential bid==