Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis claimed the president offered him the nomination. — Reuters pic
PRAGUE, Oct 12 — Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis today said the country’s president had promised to nominate him to form a government at their meeting today shortly before being rushed to hospital.
The claim came as politicians looked for ways to end the impasse brought on by President Milos Zeman’s hospitalisation just when he would be required to appoint a premier following elections.
“When I talked to the president on Sunday, he said that when the moment comes, he will ask me,” Babis told Czech TV.
“It is up to me to accept or refuse,” he said, adding he was also ready to become an opposition politician.
The centre-right Together alliance narrowly won last weekend’s vote ahead of the populist ANO party of billionaire Babis.
Along with another centrist alliance, Together would have a majority of 108 seats in the 200-seat parliament.
But Zeman had said before the election that he would tap the leader of a party, not an alliance, to form the next government, suggesting his old political ally Babis would go first.
Given the make-up of the new parliament, he would struggle to form a majority or continue with a minority government.
Czech media have meanwhile started to suggest names that might appear in the next government, with Together leader Petr Fiala seen as the most likely candidate for prime minister.
The hospital has said the president is in a stable condition and being treated by elite intensive care specialists.
“Unchanged, thank you, good bye,” Prague military hospital spokeswoman Jitka Zinke told AFP when asked about Zeman’s condition.
Local media said the 77-year-old president, who allegedly suffers from liver problems, may stay in hospital for weeks.
Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek told Proglas radio that Zeman had received his family members and his closest collaborators.
He said today that information about the president’s condition will be provided “continuously but sparingly”.
But Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil said in a statement he would officially ask Zeman’s office for more information as “we are concerned that his current condition may not allow the president of the republic to do his job.”
The Senate has called a meeting of its committee for the constitution to discuss the deadlock next week. — AFP