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PRAGUE — The coronavirus is surging in the Czech Republic, and people are turning on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš — who is feeling his grip on power slip.
To some, he’s gone overboard. To others, he hasn’t done nearly enough. Babiš and his team have sent inconsistent signals about when coronavirus measures will be lifted and parliament is moving to restrict Babiš’s decision-making on coronavirus restrictions. Meanwhile an opposition coalition is overtaking the prime minister’s ANO movement in the polls.
For Babiš, it’s a disappointing turn of events after his country was initially praised for its handling of the pandemic last spring. But now, a spiraling infection rate that’s the worst in the EU has led the population to lose faith in the government. With legislative elections slated for October, Babiš’s political future is in doubt. And his opponents have pounced.
They lashed out when Babiš recently circumvented parliament to impose a two-week state of emergency, despite the measure being voted down by MPs. The measure led to a constitutional standoff, raising questions about whether Babiš had such authority. It also prompted MPs to craft a pandemic law that would reduce Babiš’s influence over any future lockdown restrictions. The law — which has passed the lower house of Parliament and awaits Senate approval — would go into effect when the current state of emergency ends on February 27.
“We don’t want [the COVID-19 effort] to be run chaotically as it has been, where the prime minister receives an SMS and then says we have to do this or that,” Ivan Bartoš, chairman of the opposition Czech Pirates, said in an interview. “It is really chaotic. We want a strategy based on scientific analysis and data.”
Petr Just, a political scientist at the Metropolitan University Prague, agreed that Babiš’s approach has been inconsistent.
“Not relying on experts and chaotic communication are the major mistakes the government has made,” he said.
A coronavirus epicenter
In recent weeks, the crisis has become acute. The country’s two-week infection rate per 100,000 is close to 1,000, three times the EU average. Its death rate of 174 people per million is also among the worst in Europe.
The Czech public has become increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress. According to a recent poll by Kantar for Czech Television, the newly-formed coalition of Bartoš’s Pirates and the Party of Mayors and Independents (STAN) would win parliamentary elections if they were held now, polling at 29.5 percent, 3 points ahead of the prime minister’s ANO movement.
Babiš’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, would not even clear the 5 percent hurdle to enter Parliament.
Just said the prime minister faces a paradoxical backlash, as he’s being repudiated by people who believe he has not done enough to stem the pandemic and those who feel that he has imposed too many restrictions.
“Especially the group rejecting the restrictions might cause him trouble at the polls, because these groups are oriented on protest against the traditional parties,” Just said via email.
Previously, Babiš had positioned himself as an outsider also trying to disrupt the country’s entrenched parties. “But this time,” Just said, “Babiš himself is the target of these groups.”
Controversial actions
Appearing to respond to some of the criticism that the restrictions were too harsh, Babiš’s government moved to loosen a few pandemic restrictions — only to reverse course after being panned by health experts.
Industry Minister Karel Havlíček initially announced that certain non-essential shops would open on Monday, despite the surge in new cases.
The statement contradicted the prime minister’s own declaration in mid-January, when he said the government would only consider lifting coronavirus restrictions once “the daily increase of infections drops to one to two thousand.” The country is nowhere near that target — on Tuesday, a total of 12,486 new infections were registered in the Czech Republic, the highest number in a month. On Thursday, there were still over 11,500 new cases.
This week, Babiš said that the situation was too grave to open shops, and his minister quickly backed down.
Instead of loosening restrictions, the Czech government now may be forced to tighten them even further.
“It is possible that a full lockdown will be unavoidable in the coming weeks,” said Rastislav Maďar, who previously led a group of epidemiological experts at the Czech health ministry that advised the government on coronavirus protocols.
Babiš’s health minister Jan Blatný appeared to agree. He told journalists on Tuesday that many regions may soon be forced into full lockdowns, citing the rapid spread of the U.K. variant of the coronavirus.
Blatný may soon have more power to make those decisions. Under the pandemic law moving through Parliament, the health minister, regional governors and the mayor of Prague, Zdeněk Hřib, a member of the Czech Pirate Party, would all be given more power to enact coronavirus measures. The law would also force the government to regularly inform parliament about the application of any COVID-19 restrictions.
But Maďar — who heads the University of Ostrava’s Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health — said the government may have missed its window to curb the surge in cases last year because “there was no political will.”
In August, for instance, when infections were rising again, Maďar’s group and then Health Minister Adam Vojtěch proposed a mask mandate for all public indoor areas. Babiš rejected the idea, Maďar said.
The prime minister has denied the charge, and did not reply to a request for comment.
Maďar blamed the decision on politicians who “feared the negative public feedback” ahead of regional elections last October. He resigned from his government post over the disagreement.
Maďar said Babiš made another mistake a few months later when he prematurely eased restrictions for Christmas shopping and celebrations. The move led to a serious spike of new infections in mid-January when, the epidemiologist noted, “the U.K. variant was already significantly present in some parts of the country.”
The fallout
The government’s back-and-forth approach to coronavirus measures has taken a toll on the Czechs.
“Many people are fed up and tired of the political games, and now refuse to respect obligatory lockdown rules,” Maďar said.
This is borne out by a recent World Health Organization survey that found 76 percent of Czechs do not trust the government regarding the coronavirus. More worrying, 46 percent of Czechs said they do not stay at home with COVID-19 symptoms.
It remains to be seen if the pandemic law will help the Czechs bring the virus under control, but the damage may already be done.
“Society is divided, exhausted, resentful and many [people] are not able to hide their anger and disappointment,” Maďar said. “This is the consequence when politicians do not respect experts and take decisions based on PR.”
