The ANO leader and likely next Czech prime minister Andrej Babis has received nominations for ministers from coalition partners SPD and the Motorists, and will formally confirm them with his coalition partners on Tuesday, before personally delivering them to President Petr Pavel this week, he told CTK.
Babis said his meeting with Pavel was already arranged, but he did not disclose when it would take place.
ANO, Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the Motorists agreed earlier on the division of ministries in the government, which is expected to have 16 members.
The cabinet is to include nine seats for ANO, three for SPD and four for the Motorists. In addition to the prime minister, ANO will have the ministers for finance, industry, health, labour, education, the interior, local development and justice. Experts nominated by SPD will head defence, agriculture and transport. The Motorists will get the ministries of foreign affairs, culture, and environment, and will head a new ministry for sport, prevention and health.
ANO deputy chair Karel Havlicek said on Sunday that the ministerial nominations would be approved by the coalition council on Tuesday evening. He said all three parties must find consensus in the final round.
Most attention has been focused on the efforts of the Motorists to push their MP and honorary party chair Filip Turek into the post of foreign minister. Turek has faced criticism for controversial racist and homophobic posts on social media. He has apologised for the posts and denied authorship of some of them.
Babis was also asked about the last vacant deputy speaker position in the lower house, which is to go to the Mayors and Independents (STAN), who will sit in opposition. Babis did not disclose whether ANO would eventually support STAN leader and outgoing Interior Minister Vit Rakusan, or another STAN MP Vera Kovarova, who held the deputy speaker’s seat in the last term.
“I really don’t know. When some colleagues call for a woman, it is the last chance to elect a woman. I don’t want to speculate, the [ANO deputies’] group will decide,” he said.
MPs previously elected Patrik Nacher (ANO) and Jiri Bartak (Motorists) as deputy speakers, and on the second attempt also the ODS nominee Jan Skopecek. The head of the Chamber of Deputies is SPD leader Tomio Okamura.
