The new far-right speaker of the Czech parliament has taken down the Ukrainian flag from outside the building—but his opponents have hit back by hanging their own banners in solidarity with Kyiv,
TVP World reports.
Czech Republic’s new-old prime minister, Andrej Babiš (right), will have to balance relationships with Brussels and his nationalist coalition partners.
Tomio Okamura, a fierce critic of Prague’s support for Ukraine, was elected speaker of the lower house on Wednesday, becoming the first appointment of populist billionaire Andrej Babiš’s newly formed coalition with fringe right-wing groups.
One day later, Okamura posted a video of the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag being removed—with the controversial MP himself holding the stepladder as a worker reached for the flagpole.
“The Czech Republic comes first,” Okamura says in the video.
The move was widely criticized by mainstream parties, who accused the 53-year-old—who has called for Ukrainian refugees’ welfare benefits to be frozen—of acting in Russia’s interests.
At least three MPs from the conservative ODS party, the liberal STAN movement and the Pirate Party hung Ukrainian flags from the windows of their offices in the parliament building in response to Okamura’s move, the Ukrainska Pravda website reported.
