Czech Prime Minister Babiš confronted by his own son at ANO campaign launch

The launch of the ruling ANO party’s campaign for this October’s Czech election was meant to put Prime Minister Andrej Babiš front and center. But attention was diverted by a remarkable confrontation between the Prime Minister and his own son, who declared a desire to testify against his father in the Stork’s Nest police investigation.

Andrej Babiš Jr, accompanied by his friend, film director Vít Klusák, approached his father to tell him that he has passed psychological tests confirming his mental health and is therefore ready to testify in the Stork’s Nest investigation into the Prime Minister’s alleged conflicts of interest.

Babiš previously countered claims made by his son regarding the Stork’s Nest investigation by declaring that Babiš Jr has schizophrenia.

“I have just left a psychologist’s surgery and I have a court expert. How do you feel when you see me? Why did you hurt me?” Babiš Jr asked his father.

“I will fight back. I wish you good luck with your campaign to fool the Czech nation with your ANO sect,” he continued in an extraordinary outburst.

Babiš Jr also claimed the Stork’s Nest affair, in which a company owned by Babiš’s Agrofert holding is alleged to have temporarily changed its legal status in order to receive EU subsidies, was a long-term plan of Babiš's and that he was made a “front man” for the scheme. He also claims to have been abducted and taken to the Crimean Peninsula in 2018 during police investigations into the affair.

“Nobody kidnapped my son, he left the Czech Republic of his own accord,” the Prime Minister said previously. And at the launch of the ANO campaign, Babiš denied his son’s claims of mistreatment.

“I just want to say that I have cared for my son properly,” Babiš said. “I think everyone knows what is going on here: what has happened, who is misusing my son against me. We know who misuses him, but I do not want to talk about it. I have a clear conscience. I would not wish this experience on any parent,” he continued.

Investigation into the Stork’s Nest affair was recently reopened, with a deadline of mid-September set for the police to gather new evidence. Babiš Jr maintains that everything he has said about the Stork’s Nest case is truthful. The Prime Minister’s son is no longer a subject of the criminal investigation, leaving him free to testify against his father. Only the Prime Minister and his former adviser face charges, and both deny any wrongdoing.