The centrist ANO movement led by populist Andrej Babis decisively won the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election Saturday in a vote that shifted the country to the right and paved the way for the euroskeptic billionaire to become its next prime minister.

With all votes counted, the Czech Statistics Office said ANO won in a landslide, capturing 29.6 percent of the vote, or 78 of the 200 seats in the lower house of Parliament.

“It’s a huge success,” the 63-year-old Babis told supporters and journalists at his headquarters in Prague.

Babis is the county’s second-richest man, with a media empire including two major newspapers and a popular radio station.

Although he was a finance minister in the outgoing government until May, many Czechs see him as a maverick outsider with the business acumen to shake up the system. With slogans claiming he can easily fix the country’s problems, he is, for some, the Czech answer to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Since the leader of the strongest party usually forms a new government, Babis could be the country’s next leader despite being linked to several scandals, including being charged by police with fraud linked to European Union subsidies.

The charges will likely make it difficult for Babis to find the coalition partners he needs to build a parliamentary majority. He didn’t immediately say which parties he preferred but has invited all parties that won seats in parliament for talks.

In a blow to the country’s political elite, four of the top five vote-getting parties Saturday had challenged the traditional political mainstream. Some have exploited fears of immigration and Islam and have been attacking the country’s memberships in the EU and NATO.

The opposition conservative Civic Democrats came in a distant second Saturday with 11.3 percent of the vote, or 25 seats. They were the strongest mainstream party. The Social Democrats, the senior party in the outgoing government, captured only 7.3 percent — 15 seats — while the Christian Democrats, part of the ruling coalition, won only 5.8 percent support or 10 seats.
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Turkey’s banking regulator urged the public on Saturday to ignore rumors about financial institutions, in an apparent dismissal of a report that some Turkish banks face billions of dollars of U.S. fines over alleged violations of Iran sanctions.

“It has been brought to the public’s attention that stories, that are rumors in nature, about our banks are not based on documents or facts, and should not be heeded,” the BDDK banking regulator said in a statement, adding that Turkey’s banks were functioning well.

The Haberturk newspaper on Saturday reported that six banks potentially face substantial fines, citing senior banking sources. It did not name the banks. One bank faces a penalty in excess of $5 billion, while the rest of the fines will be lower, it said.

Asked to comment, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury, which is responsible for U.S. sanctions regimes, said only: “Treasury doesn’t telegraph intentions or prospective actions.”

Two senior Turkish economy officials told Reuters Turkey has not received any notice from Washington about such penalties, adding that U.S. regulators would normally inform the finance ministry’s financial crimes investigation board.

U.S. authorities have hit global banks with billions of dollars in fines over violations of sanctions with Iran and other countries in recent years.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump last week adopted a harsh new approach to Iran by refusing to certify its compliance with a nuclear deal struck with the United States and five other powers including Britain, France and Germany under his predecessor Barack Obama.

Trump argues the deal was too lenient and has effectively left its fate up to the U.S. Congress, which might try to modify it or bring back U.S. sanctions previously imposed on Iran.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said Trump’s strategy involved placing additional sanctions on Tehran and that Washington had been “engaging our allies and partners” with the aim of denying funds to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Haberturk report comes as relations between Washington and Ankara, which are NATO allies, have been strained by a series of diplomatic rows, prompting both countries to cut back issuing visas to each other’s citizens.

U.S. prosecutors last month charged a former Turkish economy minister and the ex-head of a state-owned bank with conspiring to violate Iran sanctions by illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on Tehran’s behalf.

President Erdogan has dismissed the charges as politically motivated, and tantamount to an attack on the Turkish Republic.

The charges stem from the case against Reza Zarrab, a wealthy Turkish-Iranian gold trader who was arrested in the United States over sanctions evasion last year. Erdogan has said U.S. authorities had “ulterior motives” in charging Zarrab, who has pleaded not guilty.
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A popular Russian TV anchor who recently announced plans to seek the presidency has vowed to withdraw her candidacy if mainstream opposition leader Alekei Navalny becomes eligible to reenter the contest, but some Russia observers have been quick to pan her candidacy as a Kremlin ploy to split the liberal opposition.

Journalist Ksenia Sobchak, daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the former St. Petersburg mayor and one-time mentor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, launched a promotional video Wednesday in which she in announced her decision to run as a candidate “against all” on behalf of all angry Russian voters.

In the video, Sobchak says she will drop out of the race if Navalny, who is legally barred from seeking public office until 2028, is allowed to return to the ballot. But some analysts see her bid as a Kremlin ploy to split the liberal opposition by planting a Kremlin-approved spoiler candidate to give the election the appearance of credibility.

Both Sobchak and presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov have vigorously denied the allegation that any Kremlin officials are involved in Sobchak’s candidacy.

Meeting with reporters on Thursday, however, Peskov did not clarify how Putin, who recently met privately with Sobchak, reacted to her plans to challenge his presumptive candidacy for reelection.

Multimillionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s 2012 run for office, in which he secured about 8 percent of the vote, was largely described by critics in the same terms.

Russia’s state-run Tass news agency is reporting that Ilya Yashin, the head of Russia’s opposition Solidarity movement, won’t support Sobchak, a prominent “it girl” socialite who is routinely described as the “Russian Paris Hilton.”

Establishment resentment

Sobchak’s candidacy hasn’t thrilled some of Russia’s seasoned politicians, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

“This is a fake, phony candidate,” he said, adding that her arrival on the campaign trail could have “dangerous” consequences. He did not elaborate upon what that meant.

Political analyst Dmitry echoed that sentiment, calling Sobchak’s bid “a mutually beneficial scenario” for the 35-year-old TV anchor and Kremlin operatives.

“Clearly Ksenia is a public figure with experience and great communication skills,” Oreshkin told VOA’s Russian service. “Many people may vote for her. She is a woman, she is a fresh face in politics, she is famous, and simply just for kicks. I think she has a good chance to get around 10 percent [of the vote]. The element of novelty will kick in. The Kremlin is counting on that, most likely. That is also what she is counting on.”

Regardless of how her candidacy fairs, Oreshkin added, it can only enhance her elite social status.

“If a candidate for president of Russia hosts some corporate party, it’s fantastic and [has the power to raise] a lot more money, as I understand it,” he said.

Because opposition leader Navalny is barred from running, Oreshkin added, the Kremlin is depending on Sobchak to “bring a terribly depressing presidential campaign back to life.”

“Now there is a new topic for discussion: whether Sobchak is good or bad, whether she’s helping Navalny or hurting him,” Oreshkin said. “It’s something to talk about. The democratically inclined voters will go after that bone. It’s also an element in the Kremlin’s bigger picture, or special operation — whatever you want to call it.”

If Sobchak is running with blessings of the Kremlin, he said, it only underscores the Russian government’s faith in its own impunity.

“It is, in fact, a signal that the government not only demonstrably despises electoral procedures and any civic myths and arguments that the people should be respected, but also the fact that the Kremlin has hopelessly lost touch with reality,” Oreshkin said.

“We just have to thank the Kremlin that it didn’t nominate the puppy named Vernyi that the president of Turkmenistan recently gave to Putin as a gift,” he added.

The name Vernyi literally means “loyalty” in Russian.

‘No target to spoil’

Andrei Kolesnikov, director of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions program at the Moscow Carnegie Center, thinks Sobchak’s candidacy lacks any practical significance.

“It cannot have any influence on the outcome of the election,” Kolesnikov told VOA. “The president will receive the required amount of votes, just like the runner-up, and it’s not worth even mentioning the other [candidates].”

Sobchak’s bid, he said, is most likely a self-serving personal project that was “probably approved by the Kremlin but not initiated by it.”

“If [Sobchak is] to be a spoiler, then [she is] without a target to spoil. Navalny will not be allowed to run for president however you look at it,” he said, adding that her candidacy also poses no tangible threat to liberal Yabloko Party candidate Grigory Yavlinsky.

“[Yavlinsky] has a nuclear voter base: it’s small but tough, and it’s not leaving him for anyone else,” Kolesnikov said. “I believe the Kremlin grabbed hold of Sobchak’s initiative in an attempt to somehow stir interest in the election. I can even imagine that she will get government support at some point.”

Russia’s Central Election Commission recently barred Navalny from seeking office due to his 2013 conviction on money-laundering charges.

International watchdogs groups such as Amnesty International have called the charges a politically motivated fabrication, and the European Court of Human Rights, which recently reviewed the evidence against Navalny, called the Russia court’s decision “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”

Kolesnikov said: “Those who are truly opposition-minded won’t take [Sobchak] seriously.

“Alekei Navalny is working outside of the legal framework so we can’t estimate his possible losses. There is the view that her bid will make it difficult to deliver Navalny’s ideas to the voters. But I don’t accept this argument. Navalny has sufficient chances” to have his message heard, he said.

This story, which originated in VOA’s Russian Service, was translated by Svetlana Cunningham.
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At China’s Communist Party Congress this week, President Xi Jinping said the country would be a contributor to global development. Key to that is the so-called One Belt One Road Initiative, which seeks to rekindle the ancient Silk Road trade routes linking China with Europe and Africa. Billions of dollars have been plowed into infrastructure projects along the route, but as Henry Ridgwell reports, there are calls for China to focus on development goals such as alleviating poverty.
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