(Bloomberg) -- Czech billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis said he won't rely on backing from an extremist anti-Muslim party as he continues in talks to secure support for his government more than three months after winning elections.
Lawmakers shot down Babis's first attempt at creating a single-party cabinet last month, with traditional political forces refusing to cooperate with his ANO party because he's facing a fraud investigation tied to the suspected misuse of European Union aid funds. The second-richest Czech, who denies the allegations, is holding more talks to find support either for a coalition or another minority setup with the tacit approval of other parties.
Babis has tread a fine line: he's negotiated with parties that want to cut ties with the Czech Republic's western allies while also trying to show fellow EU members that he's different from the leaders of Poland and Hungary, who've clashed with the EU over the rule of law. Now ruling in a caretaker role, Babis backtracked Wednesday on a plan to push for tacit support from SPD, which is calling for a Brexit-style vote to leave the EU.
“We are, for now, talking to the SPD about a program, and we aren't expecting that we'll need their tolerance,” Babis said on Czech Television after a government meeting in Prague.
QuickTake Q&A on Babis's struggles to create government
The change of tack followed questions by SPD leader Tomio Okamura about the severity of conditions at a World War II-era concentration camp near Prague in which hundreds of Czech Roma died during the Nazi occupation. Okamura's statements were denounced by human-rights groups, mainstream parties and some of Babis's colleagues as Holocaust denial.
With ANO holding 78 mandates in the 200-seat parliament and the center-right parties sticking to their opposition to working with him, Babis's best chance of winning a confidence vote is to negotiate with his former coalition partners -- the Social Democrats -- and the Communists. The billionaire needs to show he has sufficient support in parliament before President Milos Zeman gives him a second mandate to form a cabinet.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Laca in Prague at placa@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey, Andras Gergely
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