After demonstrations in support of Czech President Petr Pavel, which tens of thousands of Czechs first took to the streets in Prague on February 1st, and on Sunday in nearly 400 towns and villages, the ruling coalition backed down from appointing controversial influencer Filip Turek as Minister of the Environment.
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš praised the smallest coalition partner, the Eurosceptic conservatives from the "Motorists for Themselves" party, for giving in and no longer insisting that their honorary president Turek be the Minister of the Environment, for whom the position of "government plenipotentiary for the EU Green Deal" was therefore invented.
"When I saw the pressure in society, I realized it was time to step down. We made a concession, which is logical because the dispute was not good for the relations between the government and the president. It is okay for Igor Červeni to be appointed. I want the cooperation of the government with the president and Brussels to be good," Turek said at a press conference after the government session.
This morning, Turek told reporters that an obedient man will be appointed as Minister of the Environment - "where I look, he jumps," and that he, Turek, will in fact informally lead the Ministry.
The demonstrations in early February were hastily organized in Prague due to a scandal when, at the end of January, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Petr Macinka, the leader of the "Motorists", sent threatening nighttime SMS messages to the presidential advisor in which he blackmailed the head of state into appointing a controversial Turk as minister, otherwise Macinka would "forbid the head of state" from representing the Czech Republic abroad and leave him to "just lay some wreaths".
President Pavel refuses to appoint Turek as minister because he is known for racist and xenophobic comments on social media, with multiple pictures of him raising his hand in the Nazi salute "Sieg Heil!".
He is also known for threatening an employee at the Saudi Arabian Embassy, leaving a bullet on his car in the garage, and for disrespecting the law - driving faster than 250 kilometers per hour, and building illegally.
That's why Pavek believes that such a man does not deserve to be a minister, and he has a legal analysis and the corresponding article of the Czech Constitution for that.
The petition "We Stand with the President" by the non-governmental initiative "A Million Moments for Democracy" has been signed by more than 770.000 people since the end of January. They are responding en masse to calls to show their support on the streets because they expect Pavel to protect independent democratic institutions so that the Czech Republic, with populists and radical nationalists in power, does not go the way of Slovakia and Hungary.
"Values such as freedom, democracy, respect for the law and being in the European Union and NATO are what make us a free country. We know that in this day and age it is not easy to publicly defend these values. There are attacks on you, lies and hateful criticism. Don't let this sway you. We want you to know that you are not alone!" - is the message to President Pavel in the petition.
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