Andrej Babis, whose ANO movement won last weekend’s parliamentary elections, clarified yesterday that there are no plans to replace the president of the Czech Police, reacting to Tuesday’s statement by Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) leader Tomio Okamura that his party would seek to replace police chief Martin Vondrasek if it enters the government.
Babis again described Okamura’s statement as inappropriate.
Okamura justified his statement on Tuesday in part by citing his own prosecution over SPD’s election posters last year, arguing that people cannot be prosecuted and threatened with jail for “opinions”.
Okamura and SPD are facing prosecution for posters used in the campaign ahead of last year’s regional and Senate elections, which criminal investigators say had racist and xenophobic overtones.
One of the posters featured a dark-skinned man with a bloody knife and a blood-stained shirt, along with the text “Shortcomings in the health care system will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons'” and “Stop the EU Migration Pact”. Another showed an AI-generated image of two Roma boys smoking a cigarette, with accompanying text reading “They tell us to go to school, but my parents don’t care at all…” and “Support only for families where children go to school”.
A public prosecutor filed charges against Okamura in August for incitement to hatred, for which he faces six months to three years in prison if convicted. Okamura calls the prosecution politically motivated. The prosecutor has proposed a suspended sentence and a fine for Okamura, and a further fine for SPD.
Vondrasek told CTK that the respective police authority and the supervising prosecutor, not the police president, have the competence to initiate criminal prosecutions.
Earlier this week, outgoing Chamber of Deputies Speaker Marketa Pekarova Adamova (TOP 09) received a renewed request from the Prague 1 District Court to lift Okamura’s immunity from prosecution in connection with the case, her spokesperson told CTK.
The Chamber of Deputies released the SPD chairman for prosecution in February. However, as he was re-elected to parliament last weekend, he regained his full parliamentary immunity. MPs will therefore have to vote again on stripping him of immunity to enable his prosecution.
Okamura’s comments were met with strong criticism from opposing parties. Outgoing Interior Minister Vit Rakusan (STAN) told Okamura that the police should remain apolitical, and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) said Okamura’s plan was an attack on the rule of law.
“I commented on Mr Okamura’s statement on Tuesday and said it was inappropriate, that he could not speak like that. We don’t agree with that and there will certainly be no such thing,” said Babis.
“I understand that Mr Okamura was probably frustrated, but as for that statement, we absolutely disagree with that. We will certainly have a strong position in the government and we will not allow such things,” said Babis, whose ANO comfortably won last weekend’s election, gaining 80 seats in the 200-seat lower house of parliament, and is now negotiating a government with SPD and the Motorists.
Babis also said he was hoping to negotiate the allocation of ministries between ANO, SPD and the Motorists by Friday. He refused to comment on any further details or media speculation that SPD would have its own expert in the post of defence minister instead of interior minister.
The only thing Babis has announced is that he will have an adviser on European affairs, dubbed the “Sherpa”. However, he did not disclose the adviser’s name.
