(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Andrej Babis will seek to become prime minister if his party were to win Czech general elections next year, he said in an interview with the Mlada Fronta Dnes on Thursday.
“I will definitely run and these will be my last elections,” Babis told the newspaper. “Everything will be at stake then, we have to win, otherwise the five-party coalition will keep destroying our country again.”
The billionaire declared his intention just as his ANO party leads in all the opinion polls. But its ability to form a government will depend on how many of his potential coalition allies will get into parliament after the election.
Babis served as Czech premier from 2017 to 2021. He won elections again in 2021 but was unable to form a majority coalition as most parties shunned cooperation with him.
Polls show that the current coalition led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala now has less support than it won at the last election. His government has been pushing for austerity measures in a bid to close the budget gap.
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