Czech president appoints Andrej Babis as PM for second time

PRAGUE -- Czech President Milos Zeman on Wednesday appointed ANO chairman Andrej Babis as the prime minister for the second time at the Prague Castle.

After the appointment, Babis took the PM's oath.

Babis's first government, which is of his ANO minority, resigned after it lost in the confidence vote of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, in January 2018. But it keeps ruling pending the formation of a new cabinet on which ANO agreed with the Social Democrats (CSSD), and the Communists party (KSCM) will support it.

Babis said earlier that he would like to ask deputies to vote confidence in his second cabinet in a month. The confidence vote may take place by July 11. He said he would wait for the result of the CSSD's internal referendum voting on their entry into the coalition government with ANO, which ends on June 14 and the result will be announced one day later.

After the appointment ceremony, Zeman asked Babis to submit a draft lineup of his new cabinet within an adequate period of time. Zeman said he hoped Babis could gain the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies this time. He did not rule out the possibility that a new cabinet could be appointed at the end of June.

Zeman thereby gave up his previous demand that Babis must guarantee a majority support in the Chamber of Deputies before his second appointment.