The Czech Social Democrats crashed out of the European parliament in weekend elections held across the continent. The poll was won by prime minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party, which picked up 6 seats by winning 21.2 percent of the vote. Despite the win, however, the result suggests the party’s powers are fading, even though its nearest competitor was ODS, which won 4 seats in the European Parliament with 14.5 percent of the vote. The Pirate party took the bronze with 14 percent, followed by the STAN+TOP coalition which was the only other party to surpass 10 percent. The head of the Social Democrats said that his party’s failure to win any seats would not destabilize the government coalition it’s a part of. Across Europe, 51 percent of voters took part in the poll, which was an improvement from the 43 percent participation rate in 2014. However, just 28 percent of eligible Czechs took part.
