A crowd of demonstrators filled more than half of Wenceslas Square last night to protest against president Milos Zeman and Finance Minister Andrej Babis and the deepening constitutional crisis in the Czech Republic. Prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka has demanded the country’s president fire the embattled finance minister who is under investigation for suspected financial machinations and is suspected of using his media empire for political purposes. Feeding the fire over the weekend was the latest in a series of recordings release on the Internet in which he appears to give directions to a reporter using material taken from police investigation materials. Parliamentary elections are coming up this fall in the country, leading to suspicions that the sudden burst of disclosures has been timed to discredit Babis, whose ANO party is the most popular in the country and appears set to win. Zeman said he would take a decision on the fate of the finance minister after an upcoming trip to China, but this has provoked lawmakers into threatening to vote on a measure that would prevent what they see as a play for time.
