Or why Transparency International's David Ondracka would be wise to refuse the post of interior minister.



Babis might have found his 'David' but there is no Goliath out there to be felled with a single stone.

Andrej Babis surprised everyone yesterday, even Bohuslav Sobotka, with his startling nomination of David Ondracka, the local head of Transparency International, as ANO’s candidate for interior minister.

After all, Ondracka is the real thing – an independent anti-corruption activist. The best proof of his independence was the muted response he gave when asked about his nomination. He said he would accept the post, but only on the condition that he receive the backing of all three members of the likely coalition government.

In other words, he would take the job only if there was a realistic chance of keeping it for more than a month. Or in other words, he had no intention of becoming dependent upon the political patronage of Andrej Babis alone.

Before looking at why a person like Ondracka would not and should not become the Czech interior minister under the present circumstances, let us consider why Babis put his name forward in the first place.

One explanation is that Babis really wants the job to go to a real anti-corruption activist. Perhaps he does, but in this case it would have been wiser first to have discussed the nomination with Bohuslav Sobotka. Becoming a minister is easy (think of the buffoons that have sat in the cabinet). Staying a minister is not so difficult either if you do as you are told. The hard part is to end the influence of the political entrepreneurs that have colonised your ministry.

Another explanation, which does not contradict the first, is that Babis is improvising or even bluffing. I suspect that Ondracka, like Ales Michl, ANO's surprise candidate for finance minister, was suggested to Babis rather recently. Perhaps Ondracka’s nomination was made without much thought and even less preparation, but in this case, it is hard to take it seriously given Ondracka's alarming profile for those political entrepreneurs. It would not be the first time that Babis had abandoned a position shortly after adopting it.

A third explanation is that Babis is burnishing his anti-corruption credentials. Again, this explanation does not exclude the others. Naturally, Babis wants to look good. But in this case, he would do well to explain exactly how he intends to manage (not abolish, just manage) the conflicts of interest that entangle him and his employees in parliament and potentially in government. And maybe he should stop buying up local media, which makes him look like Berlusconi or Ivanishvili.

There is of course a simple reason why David Ondracka will not become interior minister, and that is his unwillingness to take the job without the guaranteed support of all coalition parties. And this he will not get, not only because he is an outsider and ‘unreliable’, but because his billionaire backer has failed to prepare his future cabinet colleagues for such a remarkably bold step.

Common sense dictates that the systemic corruption that afflicts public life here must be unravelled gradually and with considerable discrimination. Babis might have found his David but there is no Goliath out there about to be felled with a single stone. The challenge is to finesse the assault on institutional corruption so that it punishes and deters, without destroying the institutions themselves.

David Ondracka no doubt has the finesse. But this is not enough. Babis would need to persuade others that Ondracka has the finesse. Upstaging Sobotka, his most important negotiating partner – and upstaging him so suddenly and in so public a fashion – suggests that Babis is not so committed to David Ondracka after all.

Babis is not a collegial person. He is not in the habit of sharing authority equally with his colleagues. His peremptory style might work well in the Agrofert conglomerate, where, as the absolute owner, he is able to overwhelm each of its many separate parts. But it is destructive in politics.

Clearly, Babis’s assumed and actual freedom to act is not shared by those with whom he is now negotiating, nor would it be shared by the new interior minister, especially if the new minister was the head of an NGO called Transparency International.

Bohuslav Sobotka leads a divided party with established and cumbersome rules of procedure. Sobotka must accommodate his party colleagues if he is to have any chance of remaining their leader. But Babis can do pretty much as he pleases. This is a style of leadership that will quickly upset his partners in government and has already started to upset his colleagues in ANO.

In short, if Andrej Babis was really determined to see David Ondracka as the next interior minister, he would have established first that Ondracka had the support of leading Social Democrats - at the very least - before making his startling announcement.

Without that support, the first victim of the new interior minister would be the minister himself. And that would be an idiotic waste of an independent anti-corruption activist. If Babis is so serious about ending institutional corruption, he should demand to be interior minister himself. Like Ondracka, he has the moral authority, at least among his one million voters. But unlike Ondracka, he has political power.