Test for billionaire PM as Czechs vote in local polls

Czechs began voting on Friday in municipal polls and the first round of a senate election seen as a test for billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his populist ANO movement.

Babis, the second wealthiest Czech known for his anti-migrant and anti-corruption rhetoric, heads since June a minority cabinet comprised of ANO and the leftwing Social Democrats.

To win a parliamentary confidence vote in July, Babis had to lean on backing from the Communists, the first government to do so since the 1989 Velvet Revolution that toppled four decades of Communist rule in the eastern European country.

ANO, which controls city hall in Prague, Brno and Ostrava, the country´s three largest cities, will face a tough fight defending the top job in Prague where mayor Adriana Krnacova has fallen out of favour over transport and housing issues.

"If Andrej Babis´s movement is to suffer a remarkable defeat, it will definitely be in Prague," the Lidove noviny daily wrote on Friday.

Krnacova is not running for mayor this time, but ANO has been in fourth place in opinion polls behind the right-wing ODS, the Pirates, and a centre-right coalition called United Forces for Prague.

In contrast, ANO leads all opinion polls in the case of a general election.

Babis´s opponents criticise the 64-year-old Slovak-born entrepreneur over an alleged EU subsidy fraud from 2007 which led to police charges that are still in effect, and for his Communist past and alleged cooperation with its secret police before 1989.

Twenty-seven out of a total 81 seats are up for grabs in the two-round senate election whose run-off is scheduled for October 12-13.

Voting will continue on Saturday, with results expected early Sunday.