President criticises Together coalition's EP election campaign portraying ANO as pro-Russian

Czech President Petr Pavel has criticised the Together coalition's European Parliament election campaign, which portrays opposition party ANO as supporting Russian interests. The president wrote on social media site X that the campaign is just as unfair and dangerous as ANO leader Andrej Babiš's statements stirring up anti-Ukrainian sentiments, and that neither will improve the country's political culture or increase citizens' trust in politicians.

On Thursday the Together coalition made up of the Civic Democrats (ODS), the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL), and TOP 09 launched a website with a domain name that uses ANO's campaign slogan for the EP elections, which the opposition party had failed to register. The coalition seized the opportunity to register the domain name themselves and changed the slogan on the website from "Česko, pro tebe všecko" (Czechia, Everything For You) to "Rusko, pro tebe všecko" (Russia, Everything For You).

Prime Minister Petr Fiala dismissed the view that the coalition had launched a smear campaign and said the idea was to alert voters to the dangers of electing ANO to the EP.