Prague, Oct 4 (IANS) The Czech Republic’s opposition ANO party, led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, held a lead in the country’s parliamentary election, which ended on Saturday as official results continued to be tallied.
Official results showed that, with over half of the voting districts counted, ANO had garnered 37.92 per cent of the vote.
The ruling center-right SPOLU coalition was in second place with 20.65 per cent.
Several other parties, including STAN, the Motorists for Themselves Party, the Pirates, and Freedom and Direct Democracy, were also poised to surpass the five per cent threshold needed to enter the 200-seat lower house of parliament.
The new Stacilo! movement, led by the Communist Party, was hovering near the threshold at 4.63 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported.
The two-day nationwide election, which will determine the 200 seats in the lower house of parliament, began with polling stations opening at 2 pm local time on Friday.
It will determine the 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament.
Preliminary forecasts suggested that six to seven parties may win representation, with front-runners including the ANO movement and the Spolu coalition. Other parties in contention are STAN, the Pirates, SPD, Stacilo! and the Motorists for Themselves Party.
In all, 26 political parties and movements are competing, fielding more than 4,400 candidates nationwide. About eight million citizens were eligible to vote.
A notable change this year is the introduction of postal voting for Czechs living abroad. By the end of August, around 24,000 citizens had registered to cast their ballots by mail.
Babis has led ANO since 2012, for which he was elected to the Parliament of the Czech Republic in the national elections in 2013. As a member of the governing coalition in 2013-2017, he served as the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
He was appointed Prime Minister of the Czech Republic in December 2017 after the electoral successes of his movement ANO in the 2017 Parliamentary elections.
–IANS
/as
