The Populist billionaire party Andrej Babis wins the parliamentary elections

The billionaire businessman Andrej Babis won legislative elections in the Czech Republic, although his populist Party Ano has not succeeded in a global majority, according to preliminary results.

In current forecasts, Ano received just under 35% of the votes, which earned them 81 seats in the lower chamber of 200 places.

BABIS – which was Prime Minister from 2017 to 2021 – should be invited to direct talks on the formation of a new coalition.

This election has not launched big surprises, but leaves a lot of questions.

Few thought that the current co-right coalition would survive. Little babis would emerge in the first place. Few thought that he would win enough seats to govern alone.

All these predictions – confirmed by all opinion polls in the past two years – have arrived.

This is the easy part. But what comes next?

Babis will start on talks immediately-perhaps this evening-with the two small right-of-right games that have managed to cross the 5%threshold: anti-Green motorists for themselves, and the anti-immigrant party and direct democracy (SPD), led by the Czech-Japan Okamura entrepreneur.

It seems that Babis will need an alliance with the two to form a majority government.

Ano will have the most common with motorists. The two are already in the same group of the European Parliament – the “pro -Sovereign” patriots for Europe, which Babis founded alongside Viktor Orban of Hungary and Herbert Kickl of Austria last year.

Ano shares the doubts of motorists on the EU emission objectives and promises to modify or reject them.

The two parties are firmly against Czech households which carry a more important financial burden for cleaner energy, and the two oppose the prohibition of the EU of the sale of petrol and diesel cars after 2035.

Relations with the SPD could be heavier.

To begin with, the SPD fought this election in a formal alliance with a number of marginal parts on the far right, which means that they will have to give them some of their seats. And Okamura may not have total control of deputies in his caucus – always a disaster recipe in coalition policy.

Babis also categorically excluded to authorize it a referendum on EU or NATO membership – a key political priority for the SPD.

The head of the ANO relied on anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in the last days of the campaign, castigating the central-law government for having given “nothing, and all the Ukrainians”.

But Okamura’s call so that Ukrainian refugees are expelled en masse will probably fall into the deaf ear.

In the end, Babis can decide to govern alone, in a minority cabinet stalled by motorists and the SPD.