The Czech Republic’s prime minister offered his resignation on Tuesday, saying he could no longer work with his finance minister and political rival, a populist billionaire whose party is favored in elections set for October. The prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, said he would meet President Milos Zeman this week to formally submit his resignation and that of the cabinet. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Zeman would accept the resignations. At a news conference, Mr. Sobotka said he could not defend the conduct of the finance minister, Andrej Babis, a 62-year-old magnate-turned-politician who has rejected frequent comparisons to President Trump.
Mr. Babis, one of the country’s wealthiest people, started a fertilizer company after the fall of Communism and, over the years, turned it into the Agrofert conglomerate, which now employs 33,000 people across a host of companies, including two newspapers, a radio station and a music channel on television.
In 2011, Mr. Babis founded his own political party, ANO (the name means “Yes” in Czech), and in the 2013 parliamentary elections, the party placed second, behind Mr. Sobotka’s Social Democratic Party. The parties formed an uneasy coalition, and Mr. Babis was named finance minister.
Full Article: Czech Leader, in Power Struggle With Rival, Offers Resignation – The New York Times.
