A Political Recalibration: What the 2025 Czech Elections Reveal

At the beginning of October, Czech voters returned to the polls to choose their government for the next four years. As expected, the President announced the elections, exposing Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s cabinet to voter judgment. The campaign had started early, with the opposition ANO, led by Andrej Babiš, seeking to stay in the spotlight through sharp criticism of the government. The far-right SPD, under Tomio Okamura, pursued a similar strategy.

During the pre-election period, the governing parties had to deal with probably the biggest scandal of their entire term, when the Minister of Justice from the main government party (ODS), Pavel Blažek, accepted a cryptocurrency gift. The state thus concluded an agreement on a donation that later turned out to be very toxic because it came from a convicted operator of an illegal internet marketplace, whose activities were of interest to investigators from other countries, including the FBI in the USA. Roughly four months before the elections, there was a forced replacement in the position of Minister of Justice when circumstances forced the long-time ODS member and professional politician to resign; he subsequently left politics.

This was an isolated issue from late May and early June 2025, which temporarily distracted from the main themes of the election campaign—whether the Czech Republic should focus more on the West and support Ukraine or adopt a more critical stance toward pro-Western tendencies. Traditional issues related to redistribution and high prices were combined with criticism of the Green Deal and its negative impact on the rising cost of living. Opposition parties promised to stop environmental measures, arguing that their impact would further burden ordinary citizens. For example, the slogan of the new Motoristé party, “We will not make your life more expensive,” reflected the main direction of the campaign.

From ANO’s Victory to the Rise of the Motorists

On the first Saturday of October, vote counting showed that the government coalition had lost its majority. The clear winner was the opposition ANO, securing over 34%—more than most had anticipated and even above pre-election forecasts of around 30%. After the elections, the largest parliamentary group is composed of 80 ANO deputies led by Andrej Babiš, one of the leading figures in trade, the chemical industry, and agriculture, who began his political career as Minister of Finance in 2013 and served as Prime Minister between 2017 and 2021. He now returns to the position he left in 2021.

Table 1. Electoral Results

The election results represent new challenges for the smaller parties. The lowest electoral gain came from the Motorists, a new political party formed in recent years that first appeared in the 2024 European Parliament elections. Last year, Filip Turek won an MEP mandate after appealing to enough voters on the joint candidate list of two marginal parties. In the European Parliament, he joined the Patriots for Europe faction, co-founded by Viktor Orbán, Herbert Kickl, and Andrej Babiš.

Other notable figures in Czech public life also entered parliament in 2025—for example, the former Supreme State Prosecutor and a well-known economist recognized for his fiscally conservative outlook. Their colleagues do not hide their criticism of the Green Deal and continued European integration and propose a number of measures intended to slow down or reverse current societal trends. All Motorists deputies are newly elected, except for one former ODS member (2006–2010) who had supported former President and Prime Minister Václav Klaus.

The second smaller political party, the SPD, belongs to the far-right camp according to its rhetoric. Its members have sat in parliament since 2013. Its position weakened slightly compared to the previous term, but 15 deputies will most likely support the formation of the new government.

The parliamentary group with the greatest increase in seats includes the Pirates, a previously smaller government party that left the coalition a year before the elections. Their representation rose from four to 18 deputies. In the previous elections, they ran on a coalition list with the Mayors and Independents (STAN), a smaller party that has existed in national politics for nearly two decades. In most previous elections, STAN formed a coalition with other smaller liberal parties. The largest decline came from the three-party government coalition Spolu, which lost 19 seats.

ANO’s Victory Sparks Complex Coalition Negotiations and Political Drama

Immediately after the elections, post-election negotiations began between a diverse trio of political parties—ANO, SPD, and Motorists. The main force and election winner is the populist ANO movement, known for its marketing-driven and programmatically flexible approach. Initially a moderate right-wing party emphasizing fiscal restraint, ANO transformed into a social-democratic-style movement between 2015 and 2017. It adopted the Social Democrats’ agenda, abandoned fiscal conservatism, and began implementing extensive financial benefits, especially targeting the young and elderly, while increasing the state budget deficit and orienting foreign policy more toward the East.

This transformation contributed to the Social Democrats’ decline—after falling below the 5% threshold in 2021, they effectively disappeared from parliament following an unsuccessful coalition with the Communist Party.

ANO’s base now consists mainly of older voters, rural communities, and peripheral regions. Its support is strongest in areas with increased voter turnout outside major cities. It is clear that ANO will be the main governing party, ready to lead based on its previous experience in power.

The smaller coalition partners are in more difficult positions. The far-right SPD has already stated that it will send party-backed experts into the government. Chairman Tomio Okamura is expected to become Speaker of the lower house of parliament. For the Motorists, government participation represents a major challenge. According to preliminary agreements, the party was to fill the position of Foreign Minister, with MEP Filip Turek as the nominee. However, his past as a businessman who engaged in inflammatory behavior online has resurfaced. He must now explain his use of racist and xenophobic language on social media, threats made to foreign embassy staff, and other controversial actions. According to media reports, his statements and actions are now under police investigation—casting doubt on the smooth formation of a government.

The leadership of the smallest coalition partner, which built its success on criticizing the current system, must now explain itself to the police, its coalition partners, and likely to voters as well. Today, it is clear that Andrej Babiš will soon return as Prime Minister, leading a diverse government composed of his party members, experts supported by the far right, and representatives of the newly formed Motorists party, which openly advocates halting environmental reforms.

For such a diverse coalition, governing will test its internal cohesion, ability to compromise, and capacity to deliver on campaign promises. Given ANO’s marketing-oriented flexibility, unexpected moves can be expected—Czech politics may yet see developments it has not experienced before.

The new government is expected to be appointed by the end of the year, and only the coming months will show whether it can make effective use of the trust gained in the elections. As negotiations between the three parties are still ongoing at the time of writing, it is difficult to make any firm predictions. However, the apparent cooperation between the experienced government party ANO, led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (2017–2021), and the newly successful protest party Motoristé, supported by a far-right protest movement, may prove problematic. It now appears that the criminal prosecution of former Prime Minister Babiš for subsidy fraud will likely be postponed, and the government’s policy promises risk being fulfilled at the expense of future generations through increased public debt.