Fiala’s government has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion, and hosts 380,000 Ukrainian refugees, making for one of the highest per capita numbers (about 1:30) in the EU. The country has also secured 300,000 artillery shells from outside the EU to fulfill the bloc’s promise to supply armaments to Ukraine.

Babiš, a populist who recently co-founded the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, also said that Fiala’s center-right government is “the biggest threat to state security,” and slammed it for increasing taxes and for exacerbating Europe’s cost-of-living crisis, as well as for EU migration and the bloc’s asylum pact.

Babiš has been vocally anti-government since his liberal Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) party lost the country’s 2021 parliamentary election. In January 2023 he unsuccessfully ran for president on a platform of avoiding war with Russia, a line he continues to pursue ahead of Czechia’s 2025 parliamentary elections.

According to the latest polls, Babiš and ANO are on track to win the 2025 vote with 33 percent support. The current coalition — made up of the center-right three-party Together (Spolu) alliance, along with the progressive Pirates and Mayors alliance — has only 14.5 percent.