Babis is facing calls to resign over allegations of graft and that he was once a communist secret agent. He denies the claims |
PRAGUE - Billionaire Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis expressed remorse over his communist past on Sunday at a ceremony in Prague celebrating 30 years since the Velvet Revolution toppled communism in then-Czechoslovakia.
The
populist mogul, who was a Czechoslovak Communist Party member in the 1980s,
paid tribute to the 1989 peaceful uprising that ushered in democratic reform to
the former Soviet satellite.
His
comments come after a quarter-million Czechs flooded central Prague on
Saturday, in demonstrations to mark the anniversary that saw protesters demand
Babis resign over allegations of graft and that he was once a communist secret
agent. He has strongly denied the accusations.
"As
you surely know, I was a Communist Party member. I'm not proud of that,"
Babis said at a ceremony attended by the prime ministers of Hungary, Poland and
Slovakia and by German parliament speaker Wolfgang Schaeuble.
He said he
"wasn't as brave" as Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright elected
the president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, and thanked those behind the Velvet
Revolution protests.
"I'm
standing here today as the prime minister elected in a free, democratic
election, and therefore I want to, at least now, express my gratitude and
humility," said Babis, whose minority government now relies on the tacit
support of Communist party lawmakers to survive in parliament.
Graft
allegations
Babis took
office after his ANO (YES) party won the 2017 general election, campaigning on
an anti-corruption ticket in the EU and NATO country of 10.6 million.
The fifth
wealthiest Czech according to Forbes, Babis himself now faces a string of graft
allegations and a conflict-of-interest probe by the European Commission centred
on Agrofert, his sprawling farming, media and chemicals holding.
He is also
tagged as an agent in secret police files from the 1980s. He has strongly
denied knowingly cooperating.
ANO still
tops opinion polls with around 30 percent support, but the scandals have stoked
a public outcry against Babis.
On Saturday
the CTK Czech news agency quoted Interior Minister Jan Hamacek as saying some
250,000 people had rallied at Letna park -- the site of some of the biggest
1989 rallies -- matching a similar protests against Babis in June.
Toppling
Soviet rule
Thirty
years ago the Velvet Revolution saw unprecedented demonstrations and a general
strike end four decades of Soviet-imposed totalitarianism in the former
Czechoslovakia, just weeks after the Berlin Wall crumbled.
On November
17, 1989, Communist police brutally crushed a students' march, sparking a
student strike and the creation of an opposition movement which then negotiated
the Communist Party's departure from politics.
In late
December 1989, Havel, then the opposition leader, was elected president of
Czechoslovakia, which went on to peacefully split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia in 1993.
The
neighbours joined NATO and the EU, with Bratislava also joining the eurozone in
2009.
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