Russia everything for you. Together they launched an anti-campaign against the ANO movement

“We certainly did not bet on an anti-campaign. Our campaign is positive,” said Prime Minister Petr Fiala, chairman of the ODS. “Andrej Babiš has a campaign on social networks based only on criticism of our government, me personally and any of our steps. They should be able to steal something from us, that’s part of politics,” he added.

According to him, the Spolu coalition does not hide the fact that he is the author of this anti-campaign. She took advantage of the YES movement team’s mistake of not registering a domain with a key password. He wants to draw attention to the threat posed by the ANO policy.

ANO chairman Andrej Babiš sharply attacked Fiala for this. “The prime minister is ridiculous, or maybe just a sad character. I don’t understand how he can lie about a positive campaign, when he just divides society with some Russian pictures, flags and slogans,” he wrote to Novinkám.

Babiš launched the ANO campaign in Zlín before the European elections, the leader is Klára Dostálová

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“He’s only abusing the war in Ukraine and he doesn’t care at all that people are dying there, he’s campaigning on that tragedy and bragging about it. If they need to register a domain that we didn’t want to use, then let them enjoy it, the content is important. While we have a positive slogan Czech Republic for you everything, they are running an anti-campaign, as they have always done,” he added.

Also according to ANO first vice-chairman Karel Havlíček, this meeting is typical for government parties. “It is also one of the reasons why only two percent of people trust this government. It is one thing that people are annoyed by the economic and social situation, another is that they are annoyed by such labeling. Anyone who disagrees with this government is, according to it, a non-democrat and a Russian cockroach, a troll, a supporter of the Warsaw Pact or a desolate person,” he told Novinkám.

The opposition movement launched its campaign on May 1 in Zlín, where it also presented its election slogan “Czech Republic for everything”. People associated with the Spolu coalition, who registered the ceskoprotebevsecko.cz domain already on Friday, April 26, apparently knew this ahead of time.

However, not long after that, a collage appeared on social networks, which decorates the chairman of the Babiš movement and the leader of the candidate Klára Dostálova with Russian flags and proclaims “Russia for you all”. It was mainly shared by government politicians, later journalist Jakub Zelenka pointed out that the source of the collage is directed towards the Spolu coalition, although it is not visible at first glance. The campaign sponsor is listed only on the registered domain at the bottom of the website.

“What Mr. Babiš has been demonstrating in recent days, in my opinion, is beyond the edge of normal functioning, even in relation to Ukraine. It really transfers to Peter Pellegrini’s position in Slovakia,” said Marek Benda, a member of the ODS board, to Novinkám.

He admitted that criticism for the negative campaign can fall on them. It also happened before the parliamentary elections, when the Spolu coalition published red and black posters depicting the chairman of ANO with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Babiš repeatedly claims that he is pro-European and pro-Western.

“Our campaign strategy is our strategy and I think that the ANO movement is following such a destructive option in relation to the current government, it can also be seen in the bizarre situation we experienced around pensions, that there is no reason to save them,” added Benda.

He alluded primarily to Babiš’s criticism of ammunition aid for Ukraine. In his videos, Babiš, for example, refers to arms companies as “merchants of death” and criticizes the alleged lack of transparency in the supply of weapons and ammunition aid.

“Aren’t you selling your soul too much?” Černochová turned sharply on Babiš

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“We do not criticize aid to Ukraine, we agreed to economic and military aid, training of soldiers, intake of Ukrainian refugees, all the so-called lex Ukraine. Mr. Chairman is just pointing out that we should know what kind of weapons and how much they are being supplied for,” said ANO vice-chairman Havlíček.

Together, they also dug into the phrase “It came via Whatsapp”, which the YES movement often uses in its glossing collages.

According to Havlíček, the post “Russia for you everything”, which is supposed to parody the slogan YES, definitely did not reach the ODS headquarters on WhatsApp, as they claim. “This is a targeted campaign. And in the final, it is not aimed at us, but at a third of the population. We are its representatives. Our voters may feel affected by the fact that someone is making Russians out of them,” Havlíček says.

According to him, even ANO could label the government of Petr Fiala (ODS) as “pro-Russian” with the same logic, when it did not prevent the fact that roughly 60 percent of the gas flowing into the Czech Republic comes from Russia.

The world praises, Babiš vilifies. The head of ANO has a Czech ammunition initiative in his stomach

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For a long time it seemed from polls that people who vote for the government coalition would rather not go to the polls than go to the opposition YES. According to Karel Komínek from the Institute for Political Marketing, this is apparently starting to change.

“Until recently, both blocks were impassable. From the last poll I saw, it seems that voters are willing to jump from camp to camp, and it is possible that this has increased the threat to the government camp,” he told the editorial office.

“One of the ways to win elections is to reduce the turnout of the other party, not just to strengthen yourself,” added Komínek. According to him, it could work for some voters who perceive Russia as the biggest threat.

On the contrary, political marketer Jakub Horák is convinced that a negative campaign linking Babiš with Russia will not work. He evaluates the recent communication towards the voters as “one misstep after another”.

“A negative campaign works when you have emotionally controllable voters and your target group is similar to that of the SPD. Together, he focuses on winning among voters who think rather than act, and I don’t think it will work for them,” suggests Horák.

According to him, before the parliamentary elections, the anti-campaign against ANO had an effect. But the Spolu coalition is in its second year in government, and ANO’s missteps are not as burning as the government’s current problems. “They don’t have an arch-enemy to unite against, because now they are becoming one themselves by upsetting their voters,” says Horák.

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