Czech prime minister, headed for tough vote, says opponent would cooperate with extremists

By Jan Lopatka

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, headed for a difficult election in a month, told supporters on Wednesday that his main opponent Andrej Babis would put the country's democracy and position in Europe under threat by making deals with extremist parties.

Fiala's SPOLU (Together) centre-right coalition faces an uphill battle in an October 3-4 parliamentary election that pits it against the ANO party of billionaire Andrej Babis, a eurosceptic ally of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Opinion polls show ANO winning the most votes with over 30%, a 10 point advantage over SPOLU, but as many as seven parties could exceed the 5% threshold to win seats in parliament, meaning the next government is almost certain to be a coalition.

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Fiala told a crowd at Prague's Peace Square that the country's roots in Europe could be eroded if Babis were to rely on far-right or far-left parties.

"People are worried over what happens if populists and extremists win," he said. "For the first time since 1989, I am worried as well," he said, referring to the year of the "Velvet Revolution", when then-Czechoslovakia threw off Communist rule.

Fiala is hoping that he can boost his support among mainstream voters by sounding the alarm over his rival's potential future coalition partners.

"I don't see Babis as the greatest threat, but I fear the smaller parties," said Simon Jezek, a 23-year-old law student in Prague, who described one far-left party seen as a potential member of a Babis-led coalition as "masked Communists".

Babis's ANO party started as a pro-European, centrist liberal movement in 2011, but Babis later turned it into an anti-Brussels, anti-immigration group and formed the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament with Orban and several other far-right European parties.