Andrej Babis has been dressing down for this election campaign trail, opting for jeans and sneakers instead of tailored suits and handmade shoes.   

He sometimes appears at these events wearing a wool sweater, sometimes in a black hoodie featuring his initials, AB, and sometimes in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Czechia, everything for you" or "Czechia — against the green madness."

Babis has rarely been seen on big stages during this election campaign, preferring to address small groups or speak from the platform of his election vehicle.

He signs autographs, shakes hands, poses and smiles for selfies and seems to get chirpier the longer the events go on.

This is 71-year-old Andrej Babis, billionaire, populist and controversial former prime minister of the Czech Republic.

Babis pledges to run Czechia like a company

Andrej Babis has often been compared with US President Donald Trump, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In reality, however, he stands for his very own, Czech brand of populism.

Czechia goes to the polls on Friday and Saturday to elect a new parliament, and opinion polls suggest that Babis will be Czechia's next prime minister with his ANO party.

When Babis appears on the campaign trail, he generally speaks out against "the system" and "corrupt politicians," saying that the political establishment is incapable, bureaucratic and inefficient, that it disregards the people, divides up posts among its own, lies, cheats and wastes money.

He claims that as a successful entrepreneur, he would do things very differently, running the state like a company. He also pledges to listen to the people, clean up the country in their name and help them to lead good and dignified lives.

The billionaire rebel underdog?

But although the billionaire likes to portray himself as the rebellious underdog in a hoodie and as the spokesperson of the poor and downtrodden, he has been part of the country's establishment all his life.

Born in what is now Slovakia, he grew up in a family that belonged to the powerful elite of the communist dictatorship of Czechoslovakia.

Due to his father's work as a trade representative, Babis lived for a time both in Switzerland and in France.

After finishing high school in Geneva, he studied economics in Bratislava and later worked in foreign trade himself in a number of places, including Morocco.

Success in the 1990s

His mysterious rise to the ranks of the super-rich in the Czech Republic began in the "wild 1990s," the period after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

In 1995, he assumed ownership of the agricultural and chemical holding Agrofert, which he had previously run as director.

Babis tells a number of different versions of the story of how he came to own Agrofert, though many critics see them as vague and sometimes implausible. Today, Agrofert encompasses about 250 companies worldwide, and Babis is currently estimated to be worth about $3.5 billion (€3 billion).

The move into politics

He says that it was what he calls the intolerable state of the country — corruption, bureaucracy and lack of reforms — that motivated him to enter politics.

In 2011, he founded the ANO movement, which stands for Action of Dissatisfied Citizens and is, at the same time, the Czech word for "yes."

Ever since, ANO's most important slogan has been "Yes, things will get better!" and its promise that Babis will set things to rights in the country.

The Stork's Nest case

The voters gave him the opportunity to do just that: Babis was first finance minister from 2014 to 2017 and then prime minister from 2017 to 2021.

But his tenure became mired in endless debates about his alleged involvement in cases of fraud and corruption. The Stork's Nest was one such case.

The Stork's Nest is a wellness resort near Prague for which Babis was granted EU subsidies. It is alleged that he formally took a company out of the Agrofert Holding for a time to make it eligible for subsidies.

Investigations into the Stork's Nest have been ongoing for almost a decade now. There have already been a number of rulings in the case, and in June of this year, a court in Prague ruled that the entire case had to be reopened.

Babis in the headlines

But the Stork's Nest is just one among many stories about Babis' alleged financial irregularities. For years, he has been in the headlines because of allegations of conflicts of interest, tax evasion, corruption, influencing the media and his past in the secret service of communist Czechoslovakia.

He put his Agrofert Holding into trust funds in 2017. A court later determined that in doing so, he had obscured his role as owner. Babis was forced to sell his media companies in 2023 because of a law governing conflicts of interest.

Like many populist leaders elsewhere, he has long been agitating against migrants and, more recently, against Ukrainian refugees. Nevertheless, it has been reported that his business empire employs numerous workers from non-EU countries such as Vietnam or Ukraine, sometimes under inhuman conditions.

Agent 'Bures'

A court in Slovakia found that Babis once worked as an agent for the Czechoslovak secret service, the StB, under the code name "Bures," though Babis denies this, and the issue has been the subject of numerous lawsuits between him and the Slovakian government. 

Whenever such a controversy pops up, Babis either says that he has "done nothing illegal" or that "the system" wants to take revenge and destroy him.

While he was prime minister, there were mass protests in response to the scandals involving Babis and demonstrations for a "clean country." According to Babis, these were all propaganda activities organized by his enemies.

An opportunistic populist

Unlike his friend Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Babis does not view the European Union as the enemy.

Although he is not the mouthpiece of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whenever there is talk of military support for Ukraine, he like to deflect the conversation, saying that he is "a diplomat, not a soldier."

He has not so far had the political opportunity to reorganize Czechia, but it is not clear whether he actually wants to. It is possible that he is seeking the immunity that would come with being prime minister and would mean he no longer has to be questioned or appear in court.

Babis is a smooth — some observers would even say opportunistic — version of a populist, a restless man with a huge ego.

Babis once told the author of this article that he rarely sleeps, that he "always has to be doing something" and that he actually regrets having entered politics. At the same time, he said, the people in Czechia need him and he cannot let them down.

This article was originally published in German.