Europe’s newest leader faces tough tests — pay heed, America and Ukraine

When citizens of the Czech Republic voted in their country’s crucial parliamentary elections last weekend, they were deciding more than their own democracy’s future.

They were also determining the fate of Ukraine.

The Czech Republic — or Czechia — may be a small Central European nation, but it’s functioned as a practical frontline state in the West’s standoff with Russia.

It’s sheltered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and procured vital ammunition for Ukraine.

An abrupt shift in Prague’s policy towards Kyiv would not be merely an abstract European drama: It would upend the logistics and political will on which Washington has relied to keep Ukrainian resistance alive.

On the morning of the vote, I met a 90‑year‑old woman as she inched her way to the polling station with the aid of two walking sticks.

Having lived through the horrors of Communism, she’s determined to halt the resurgence of “evil.”

The sight of young Czechs surrendering to the temptations of radical politics make her “sick and sad.” She wishes they’d appreciate the “progress we have made.”

I thought of her as the results were announced. The Communists were effectively wiped out, failing to cross the 5% threshold needed for seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Nearly two dozen other parties joined them in electoral oblivion.

In the end, there was no grand surprise. The elections played out largely as pollsters had predicted.

For many Czechs, that was a relief: The feared surge of far-left and far-right extremism never came. 

Yet beneath this surface, the results tell a more troubling story. 

They produced no decisive winner. The party that gained the largest vote share, ANO, is not so much an outfit animated by some lofty ideology as a vehicle for one man’s ambitions.

Andrej Babiš, a Slovak-born billionaire who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, calls himself a Czech-first nationalist.

His rivals decry him as a soft-on-Russia populist whose comeback will undermine Czech support for Ukraine.

This is an oversimplification. Babiš’s politics are not doctrinal; they are transactional.

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, Babiš sported a red baseball cap modeled on MAGA emblazed with the slogan “Strong Czechia.”

He relished being called the “Czech Trump” and boasted about meeting the man on multiple occasions.

After Trump’s 2020 defeat, however, Babiš swiftly discarded the MAGA imagery.

Unlike, say, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Babiš isn’t a card-carrying populist conservative.

He was left-leaning liberal when it was fashionable.

On the campaign trail, he even rejected Trump’s call for NATO nations to raise defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product.

Babiš’s real instinct is for grievance politics.

He saw how inflation, tax hikes, energy costs and austerity are squeezing ordinary Czechs as their government pours money into helping Ukraine.

By asking why Czechs were paying for someone else’s war, he tapped into an unspoken resentment.

Brussels may sneer, but the message resonated across small towns and rural regions.

His promises were broad: more cash for pensioners, tax cuts, higher wages, reduced energy tariffs.

Still, even with all the giveaways, Babiš fell short of an outright majority.

His party secured 80 of 200 seats — 21 short of the number required to form a majority government.

Czech politics is now splintered among competing factions.

Babiš must somehow build a working majority. His likeliest partners are two right-wing parties: Motorists for Themselves and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD).

Motorists, a newcomer forged in opposition to Europe’s green agenda and cycle lanes, won 13 seats.

SPD, led by the Japan-born Tomio Okamura, is virulently anti-European Union, anti-migrant and anti-NATO. These positions terrify Czech moderates and businesspeople.

Complicating things further, Babiš still faces a long-running fraud trial over EU farm subsidies, and conflict-of-interest laws may force him to relinquish control of his sprawling business empire.

But those who know him are certain he’ll find a way to keep his business and run the country — if not directly as prime minister, then as puppet master to a hand-picked proxy.

But what of Ukraine? Despite campaign bluster, Babiš is unlikely to abandon Kyiv.

Czech arms factories have prospered from supplying Ukraine, and public sympathy for Ukrainians — hundreds of thousands of whom have sought refuge in Czechia, which houses the most Ukrainian refugees per capita in the EU — remains formidable.

In the campaign’s final days, Babiš was forced to dilute his Ukraine rhetoric.

He may make occasional noises, but there will be little real change in policy.

That’s good news for the West, especially Ukraine and the United States.

The elections’ deeper lesson is something Americans know all too well.

The Czech electorate turned away from politicians who promised stability and progress but delivered economic hardship and cultural condescension.

Babiš’s comeback is another reminder voters everywhere are turning not to ideology but to whoever seems to listen.

But governing is a different game from campaigning.

With no clear majority and no easy allies, Babiš will have to temper his populist rhetoric with responsible governance.

Czech democracy has weathered another test, but tougher trials lie ahead.

Thirty-five years after the Velvet Revolution peacefully ended Communist rule, the most urgent question in Czechia is whether the country’s politics can still deliver — besides a government — a sense of common purpose to unite a fractured nation.

How Babiš meets that challenge, as he struggles to form a coalition in the weeks ahead, should concern more than just Czechs and Europeans.

Washington ought to be watching too.