PM Babiš blames press for ANO election loss, renews calls to abolish license fees for Czech public media

First published in Respekt. Before the Czech election results were announced, a WhatsApp group used to alert journalists of prime minister Andrej Babiš’s public appearances went quiet. Reporters asking if and when the ANO leader would make a statement, were met with the same answer from party officials: ‘we don’t know’. Anticipating poor run-off results for the Senate (upper house), the party had not planned any major press events. Instead, Babiš arrived at his local polling venue – a sports hall – on Saturday (17 October) afternoon, to concede defeat. In the 2024 Senate elections, ANO had gained eight seats, but this year lost the one seat it was defending. The opposition party of Mayors and Independents (STAN) performed best, winning ten of the 14 seats it contested. Having climbed in the polls in recent months, the party now believes it could lead the opposition into the next general election against the ANO-led government. Pro-Babiš candidates defeated Babiš and his supporters could hardly have asked for a better starting position this year: ANO was defending just one mandate, and its senate group had 15 seats before the vote. Babiš said his party had an exceptional chance to break the opposition parties' long-standing majority to take control of the upper house. But that goal was quickly out of reach. ANO would have needed to win in all 27 districts, but fielded candidates in only 24 of them. When only 13 ANO candidates advanced to the second round, the prime minister’s appearances in the days before the vote suggested he no longer believed ANO could win. “The second round will see the same old story - everyone will join forces against us,” Babiš said. ANO also fielded low-profile or inexperienced candidates, while STAN party leader Vít Rakušan personally travelled to support candidates throughout the campaign. Analysts have attributed ANO’s poor performance to its poor choice of candidates. They point, among others, to Sandra Tsoukernik, the wife of a controversial businessman in the gambling industry who ran in the Tachov and Cheb district against incumbent senator Miroslav Plevný, a professor of economics. Tsoukernik diligently toured her district, but unlike Plevný she did not speak about her programme at meetings with voters — or anywhere else. Although Tsoukernik managed to fill town squares by hiring the pianist Michal David, this was widely viewed as a publicity stunt.