Czech Prime Minister candidate indicted ahead of election

Czech Prime Minister candidate accused of misusing EU grants worth nearly 2.3 million euros.

Czech police have officially filed a lawsuit against Andrej Babis, a candidate for Prime Minister in the upcoming parliamentary election, on charges of European Union (EU) subsidy fraud.

This information was confirmed by Mr. Andrej Babis himself on October 9 and he said he had filed a complaint.

Candidate Babis is accused of trying to obtain EU subsidies worth nearly 2.3 million euros to build a farm complex, conference center and resort called Stork's Nest managed by his Agrofert group, instead of the money that should have been intended for small and medium-sized enterprise projects.

Mr. Andrej Babis was prosecuted by the police for welfare fraud.

The former Czech Finance Minister denied the allegations, and repeatedly asserted that this was a purely politically motivated plan by his opponents to discredit him ahead of the House of Representatives elections on October 20-21.

In early September, the Czech House of Representatives voted in favor of a police request to dismiss Mr. Babis as a member of Parliament, paving the way for the prosecution of the Czech billionaire number two in connection with the Stork Nest case. If convicted in court, he will face a prison sentence under Czech law.

However, it is unlikely that such a trial will be held and a verdict will be given at a time when the House of Commons election is less than two weeks away.

So, with a high chance of winning, the police will still have to ask the new House of Representatives to dismiss Mr. Babis again if they want to continue prosecuting him.

Mr. Babis is currently the Chairman of the ANO Movement, one of three parties in the current ruling coalition.

ANO is leading in opinion polls and is expected to win the general election later this month, but it is expected to fall short of the number of seats needed to form a minority government on its own.

Most other parties expected to have seats in the House of Representatives in the upcoming election have said they will not ally with ANO if Mr Babis is prosecuted.

In addition to Mr. Babis, the Vice President of the ANO Movement, Mr. Jaroslav Faltynek, was also officially prosecuted by the police with similar charges due to his involvement in the above Stork Nest case./.

According to VOV