Babiš announces ANO restart: new members and candidates in Czechia

ANO leader Andrej Babiš announced a “restart” of the party after a meeting of its presidium: it will accept new members and look for new faces ahead of the next Senate elections. The movement said so in a press release quoting Babiš.

“In government we are carrying out our programme, and we discussed the elections and the situation in our regional organisations, which will meet by the end of March,” he said. By decision of the presidium, the regional congresses will review the results of the municipal and Senate elections, assess the work of the regional organisations and decide on their further development. Babiš told reporters he would attend all of the congresses, but declined to comment on possible personnel changes.

ANO was defending one seat in the Senate and, although 13 candidates advanced to the second round, it did not win a single senator. After the elections Babiš called the result catastrophic and blamed the failure on mistakes by regional organisations. “I felt that some of our members were thinking: since they have this brand, victory is guaranteed,” he said.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz