Andrej Babiš' ANO movement set to win Czech parliamentary elections

The billionaire former prime minister sits well ahead of other parties with 95 percent of votes counted.

Billionaire Andrej Babiš and his ANO (YES) movement have won Czechia's parliamentary elections with 35.5 percent of the vote, partial results indicated on Saturday.With around 95 percent of votes counted, ANO looked poised to take power from Prime Minister Petr Fiala's pro-Western coalition, who defeated him in 2021.A group of mayors known as STAN, also a member of Fiala’s government, had 10.6%. The major anti-migrant force, the Freedom and Direct Democracy party got 8.3% while a right-wing group calling itself the Motorists received 7.1%. The two are potential partners for Babiš.The Pirates party is the last group to surpass a 5% threshold to win seats with 7.6% of the vote.With the victory, Babiš would join the ranks of Prime Ministers Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia, whose countries have refused to provide military aid to Ukraine, continue to import Russian oil and oppose European Union sanctions on Russia.This is a breaking story and our journalists are working on updating it with more information.