‘I will handle it personally’: The neo-patrimonial rhetoric of the Czech Prime Minister in the times of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the contemporary discussion about the political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The goal of the text is to identify and analyze the neo-patrimonial rhetoric of Czech Prime Minister Babiš in connection with his handling of the pandemic. Using the quantitative and qualitative content analysis, we show, that Babiš’ rhetoric has shifted after the beginning of the crisis from an anti-elite position to a neo-patrimonial (as a brand-new type of populism in the European context). The purpose of this text is to point out the rhetoric shift bounds to problematic consequences on the exercise of his function and the neutrality of the bureaucratic apparatus, which must apply during states of emergency.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• populism
• neo-patrimonialism
• Czech politics
• Andrej Babiš

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. What applied to the spring wave of the pandemic does not apply to the following developments during the autumn of 2020 and winter of 2020/2021. Thanks to timely measures, the Czech Republic fared the first wave fairly well; however, during later waves, it was one of the worst countries in the world in terms of the number of infections per capita.

2. A different situation arises in regimes that are openly undemocratic (Alon et al. 2020; Machitidze and Temirov 2020).

3. The term ‘traditional party’ serves as a label for all parties within the Czech party system after the fall of the Communist regime which (with no regards to their ideology) are seen as a source of contemporary ‘social crisis’. As Babiš usually says in his populist marketing slogan, ‘we are not like a traditional politician and we are not politicians at all’.

4. The content of rhetorical performance is created by langue and parole. Because we are researching texts, we must rely only on langue, which is a wholly common approach. In the form of words, sentences and paragraphs, langue contains meaning hidden in symbols. Among other things, meaning is determined by context in sentences – for this reason, we have chosen the analysis of sentences as basic data units (i.e. we are endorsing the hermeneutic tradition of research). The meaning that is created by the speaker expresses deeds and these are equal to public acts. For this reason, our analysis of deeds, acts and rhetorical performance is not in contradiction; they are associated phenomena which are only divided into a phase of the process and its result.

5. At the time when the spring wave of the pandemic was being dealt with, distinct divisions became apparent between Andrej Babiš andJanuaryHamáček (Buštíková and Baboš 2020).

6. For a number of years, Czech political discussion has continued to deal with the topic of the possible abuse of public institutions to provide (unauthorized) grants to companies affiliated with Babiš’s holding company Agrofert. The most well-known case in the media is the case of the Stork’s Nest, a farm owned by Babiš which received an unauthorized grant for which the Prime Minister is now being criminally prosecuted. The whole issue, however, has a far greater dimension – there is a whole score of other similarly problematic grants; at the same time, the system and methods of using state institutions to protect Babiš’s business interests in grant disputes with the EU have been described in detail.

7. We can mention two differing elements in the autumn wave as compared to the spring wave that may be of interest: (1) Babiš much more often refuses criticism (two sentences in the spring and 32 in the autumn) and also expresses criticism towards others (0 sentences in the spring, 14 in the autumn); (2) the ratio of ‘I’ sentences with content and platitude grew by 0.32 (interpretation: Babiš is trying to be more comprehensive in his statements). This change in rhetoric is particularly explainable in light of the fact that, compared to the first wave which the Czech Republic managed relatively well, the country fell to the bottom of international rankings during the autumn. In other regards, Babiš’s communication over the course of both waves has been similar.

8. Footage from the Prime Minister’s visits to warehouses that were broadcast by the majority of television stations also properly showed the performative dimension (cf. Moffitt 2016) of Babiš’s neo-patrimonial approach. The Prime Minister has stylized himself into the role of a patron of ‘all the people’, to whom he provides everything necessary; even managers of supermarket chains who have played the required role against Babiš and his ‘inspection’ have taken a client position.

9. Populism and neo-patrimonialism are often associated primarily with the context of Latin American (López Maya 2018).

10. Viktor Orbán is one of the richest Hungarian citizens. However, contrary to Babiš, he did not enter politics as a billionaire or even a millionaire – his financial acquisitions originate from his political period. The fact that Orbán acquired his estate during his mandate, may indicate his use of the system beyond the margins of standard of modern bureaucracy. In general, this may be the same principle as we can see in Babiš’s case. Profits from the neo-patrimonial political practice are financial in these cases. This does not change the fact that the non-financial gains (e.g. support from the citizens) resulting from neo-patrimonial practice in times of pandemic crisis, are fundamentally similar (see Matovič’s case above).

11. I.e. statements lacking content and references to other speakers or a collective, e.g. ‘I think we’ve explained it to you…’.

12. The Prime Minister has given the name ‘Lex Babiš’ to the law adopted in the previous election period, when he held the position of Minister of Finance. Babiš is one of the richest Czech entrepreneurs, and the firms combined into a holding company which he controls receive generous European and Czech subsidies. This law was meant to prevent this situation (not only in the case of Babiš) – it creates a rule that a company that is owned by more than 25% by a member of government is now allowed to collect subsidies.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.