Czechs near minority cabinet as president backs tycoon’s bid

Bloomberg

Czechs moved closer to a rare minority government envisaged by billionaire Andrej Babis as his euroskeptic party failed to find coalition allies after winning this month’s general elections. President Milos Zeman said he won’t object if Babis proposes forming a government that lacks a parliamentary majority, because a single-party cabinet would rule more efficiently. While Babis, the second-richest Czech with an estimated fortune of $4 billion, has scheduled another round of talks for this week, he said on Sunday that more negotiations about a coalition didn’t make sense. Zeman pledged to let Babis try again if lawmakers reject his initial cabinet.
Differing policy objectives in a multi-party administration often “balance each other out, so, in the end, your government does nothing,” Zeman told public radio late on Monday. “There is no such danger with a single-party government.” Babis, who scored a dominant victory in an October 20-21 election but failed to gain a majority, is close to forming his own cabinet less than six years after he created the ANO party and spent the past four years in a ruling coalition. Such alliances have been typical in Czech politics, where the proportional election system often produces fractured parliaments. An administration without a clear majority would be an oddity.
In 1998, the Social Democrats, then led by Zeman, formed a single-party government that had a formal agreement with the largest
opposition party to keep it in power for a
full four-year term. Eight years later, the conservative Civic Democrats led a minority cabinet that failed to get parliamentary approval and was expanded into a coalition after four months. Zeman will meet Babis at 2 p.m. on Tuesday and the president is expected to formally ask the billionaire to lead talks on forming a cabinet. If Babis goes ahead with the minority plan, he’ll have to negotiate backing for the government in a fragmented legislature of nine parties.