For Czech prime minister Andrej Babis, the timing of the Pandora Papers could not have been worse.
Documents detailing the financial dealings of world leaders in tax havens include the revelation that Mr Babis used a convoluted structure of offshore companies when purchasing property in France worth tens of millions of euros in 2009. He is accused of passing money through three separate companies in order to buy luxury properties including a £13m chateau on the French Riviera.
With Czech parliamentary elections taking place this weekend, Mr Babis now risks becoming the first victim of the Pandora Papers’ revelations. The latest polls have shown a tightening in the election race. Mr Babis’s ANO party is now projected to win 25.2 per cent of the vote, ahead of the SPOLU opposition coalition on 20.9 per cent.
Furious reactions to the Pandora Papers could further weaken Mr Babis’s position.
“How intensively Czech offiials try to investigate the Pandora Papers will show to what extent the Czech state has been occupied by Babis and his people,” said the chief editor of a leading anti-Babis news portal. A Slovak newspaper, meanwhile, said “the scheme, as he used it, is one of the most popular among terrorists, drug and arms smugglers, and corrupt politicians”.
Speaking to The Independent, opposition Pirate party MEP Mikulas Peksa claimed “the Pandora Papers show why Andrej Babis was never supportive of efforts to fight for transparency and against corruption and tax evasion”.
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