With voters upset over traditional parties and orders from Brussels, billionaire populist Andrej Babis, dubbed the "Czech Trump", clinched victory in the Czech Republic's election on Saturday Oct 21,2017, while eurosceptics and an anti- Islam group backed by France's National Front made strong gains.
State election officials citing results from 99.6 per cent of polling stations said Babis's anti-corruption and anti-euro ANO (Yes) movement was ahead with 29.7 per cent support (78 parliament seats) followed by the eurosceptic right-wing ODS party on 11.3 per cent. Turnout was at 60 per cent.
Despite the country's economic success, analysts say many Czechs who are heavily in debt or working long hours for low wages feel they have been left behind and are turning to populist, eurosceptic and far-right anti-EU parties to vent their ire.
Far-right and far-left anti-EU parties made gains in the fragmented vote that put nine parties into the 200-seat Czech parliament with few obvious coalition allies among them, something analysts warned could trigger instability, even chaos.
ODS leader Petr Fiala ruled out going into coalition with ANO, insisting it will not be able to deliver on its promises.
The anti-establishment Pirates led by the dreadlocked Ivan Bartos made their debut in parliament, scoring 10.8 per cent and coming in third.
The far-right Freedom and Free Democracy (SPD) party of Tokyo-born entrepreneur Tomio Okamura scored 10.7 per cent support more than doubling its seats in parliament on strong anti-EU, anti-migrant and anti-Islam rhetoric, similar to surging far-right parties in neighbouring Austria and Germany.
France's far-right National Front Marine Le Pen sent Okamura a message of support.
A 63-year-old Slovak-born chemicals, food and media tycoon, Babis has vowed to steer clear of the eurozone and echoes other eastern EU leaders who accuse Brussels of attempting to limit national sovereignty by imposing rules like migrant quotas, he favours a united Europe and balks at talk of a "Czexit".
Full results showed the anti-EU Communists took fifth spot winning 7.8 per cent support, while the Social Democrats (CSSD) who head the outgoing coalition government took a bruising, coming in sixth with 7.3 per cent of the vote.
Social Democrat party leader Lubomir Zaoralek appeared to rule out forging a new coalition with Babis's ANO. The two parties currently form the outgoing coalition along with the smaller KDU-CSL Christian Democrats who scored 5.8 per cent support.
"I think the number of votes suggests above all we'll end up in opposition. I think it's hard to negotiate about a government with these votes," Zaoralek told reporters in Prague.
KDU-CSL leader Pavel Belobradek also said his party was not keen on cooperating with Babis, due to his indictment on allegations of EU subsidies fraud.
Outgoing Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who's left-wing Social Democrats suffered a stinging defeat, was shell-shocked by the rise of the far-right.
"How is it possible that in the Czech Republic, in a situation when the country is doing very well, when we are a stable, safe country, we have achieved many things in the social sphere in the past four years, people are increasingly in favour of extreme views?," Sobotka told reporters as results rolled in.
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