Just one week after the country’s general elections, ANO leader Andrej Babiš has given up on the idea of forming a coalition government and is working on creating a minority government of ministers from his own party and experts. The anti-establishment, billionaire leader of ANO, who is shunned by the traditional parties, wants a vote of confidence in his government before Christmas, Radio Praha writes.

ANO leader Andrej Babiš, who promised to run the country as he would his own firm, announced at the weekend that the talks on forming a coalition government had failed and he was working to put together a minority government which would function as an effective team of experts rather than a coalition grouping of parties who are forever at each other’s throats.

“We need to get on with the job. The elections are over and people want to see a government pull up its sleeves and get to work. The public is not interested in watching us squabble. They want us to deliver on our election promises and implement our policy programme. So I am working to put together a minority government made up of experts; a government for a better Czech Republic, and one that would fulfil not just our own policy program but something from the other parties’ programs as well.” 

Babiš said almost all of his party’s ministers in the outgoing cabinet had agreed to carry on and he was ready to fill the remaining posts with experts, regardless of their party allegiance. 

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Read also The new Czech leader is not leading an anti-Europe uprising: Andrej Babis’s threat to the Czech Republic is of oligarchy, not ideology published in The Economist.