People call him right wing but it says he campaigned for increased welfare spending, reducing foreign aid, increasing wages and pensions and tax reductions of students and young families.
So what am I missing? Because those thing coming from a billionaire is very unusual. Like, even the socdems in my country are currently doing budget cuts.
Babiš and his party have seemed to drift a lot in policy stances over the last 20 years, I mean he’s had coalitions with the Communist Party at one point. Their right-wing designation comes from being queerphobic, xenophobic and anti-environmentalist under the guises of ‘anti-euroliberalism’ and ‘national sovereignty’. Foreign-policy-wise he’s a true centrist, as well as being a unabashed Zionist, go figure.
Babiš publicly profiles himself as a conservative and his party sits in EU Parliament under the same grouping as all of Europe’s “mainstream far-right parties”, Patriots for Europe.
Regarding promises of welfare spending, I want to point out that Geert Wilders in the Netherlands has often promised the same things in the past, but then his party votes for austerity every time, in government or in opposition. The Law and Justice Party in Poland also talks about a strong social safety net, mainly to distinguish themselves from the neoliberal opposition.
These people are offering a deal of sorts: they promise social benefits in return for loyalty to the big strongman against ‘the elites’, which shields them against criminal investigations. If not social benefits, then the power fantasy of ‘owning the libs’ that they feel wronged by.
In modern western parlance, right wing means not wanting to have a war with Russia. They call Sahra Wagenknecht right wing as well now.
Not very much familiar with Czech politics. Is there a good read on it?
Stačilo didn’t make it 🙁
