PRAGUE: Huge crowds flooded central Prague on Sunday demanding Prime Minister Andrej Babis step down over allegations of graft in a protest that organisers and local media claim drew around 250,000 people, making it the largest since the fall of communism in 1989.

The 64-year-old billionaire was charged last year in connection with a $2.25 million EU subsidy scam, while an audit by the European Commission ruled that he has a conflict of interest as a politician and entrepreneur.

The Czech government said earlier this month there were “errors” in the audit from Brussels and Babis has refused to budge.

Largest protest since fall of communism in 1989

“Judging from the aerial photos, it looks like we’re about 250,000. We’ll see how many more people will still arrive,” said Mikulas Minar, head of Million Moments for Democracy, the NGO organising the protest, as it got underway.

Police estimates of the size of the crowd were not immediately available.

“We’re fed up with what Babis is doing, how he manages the country,” Mila Stiburkova, a 39-year-old sales manager from the central Czech town of Sazava, said. “We don’t like him pocketing money and fooling people who trust him,” added Stiburkova, who like many protesters, travelled to Prague for the event.

Country plagued with graft

Babis, the second wealthiest Czech according to Forbes, leads the centrist populist ANO movement, which, despite the controversy, won May’s elections to the European Parliament.

ANO took office after winning the 2017 general election campaigning on an anti-corruption ticket in EU and Nato country of 10.6 million plagued by graft.

It teamed up with the leftwing Social Democrats to form a minority coalition with tacit backing from the Communists for a parliamentary majority.

Babis, a former Communist, is the first politician since the 1989 fall of Communism in former Czechoslo­vakia to let the Communists have a role in government.

The Slovak-born 64-year-old is facing charges over EU subsidy fraud after allegedly taking his farm out of his sprawling Agrofert holding to make it eligible for an EU subsidy.

The EU is probing his dual role as a politician and entrepreneur, and Babis also faces allegations that he served as a secret Communist police agent in the 1980s.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2019