A demonstration against the Czech government organized by a new nationalist party brought together thousands of people in Prague on Saturday.
According to Czech news agency CTK, around 10,000 people took to the streets to complain about the way the centreright leader under Petr Fiala is dealing with high inflation and managing taxes and pensions. Criticism was also voiced during the concentration on several other topics: military support for Ukraine, the Czech Republic’s relations with the United States and NATO, support for decarbonizing the economy and containment measures to stop the spread of Covid19.
“Today we took another step to remove the stone from the Fiala government,” PRO leader Jindrich Raichl told the crowd. It is a party without a parliamentary seat founded in June last year that pursued a nationalist political line and denounced what it described as the current government’s “vassal status of Brussels and Washington.”
“We don’t want a European Union government, we don’t want an American or Ukrainian government, we don’t want a Russian or Chinese government, we want a Czech government for the Czech people,” Raichl said. In his speech, he criticized Fiala’s economic policies and said that the “influx of economic refugees from Ukraine” was pushing the Czech welfare state “to the point of bursting.”
This Saturday’s demonstration came about a year after another, also in Prague, where around 70,000 people gathered to demand the Czech Republic’s withdrawal from the European Union and other international institutions. There have been similar protests in recent months and at least one ended in clashes with police, but none achieved the same turnout as the first. According to CTK, Raichl criticized traditional media for allegedly underestimating the protests and advised protesters to get information through “alternative channels.”
During a similar demonstration in April, the PRO leader stated that the party only had 257 registered members and “perhaps tens of thousands of registered supporters.” A survey at the time showed that he had around 3% of voting intentions.
At Saturday’s demonstration, a participant wearing a Tshirt with the symbol of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner was arrested.
In another Czech city, Ostrava, the socalled NATO Days are taking place this weekend, during which the alliance’s armed forces present themselves to the public: there are air shows, tank and cavalry demonstrations, as well as simulations of various war and crimefighting scenarios. . Petr Fiala was present at the opening and reiterated the Czech commitment to NATO. When asked to comment on the Prague protest, he said the presence of around 100,000 people at the military festival was a sign of support for his proAtlantic policies.