The country’s wealthy elite is aligning itself with the far-right politics of the Motorists party to stifle dissent
Oto Klempíř was for many years the frontman of JAR, a popular Czech funk-rock band. He was expelled from the band last year, not over creative differences, or even because of his collaboration with the secret police in the 1980s, but after he declared his intention to stand for parliament for Motorists for Themselves, a populist, nationalist, climate-sceptic party that is closely aligned with Maga ideology.
Klempíř is now Czechia’s culture minister and a leading figure behind an intensifying set of culture wars promoted by Andrej Babiš’s ruling coalition as it seeks to tighten its grip on power. Increasingly the government is borrowing methods favoured by Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia.
Jan Bělíček is a journalist and editor in chief of the Czech media outlet Alarm
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