Mikhail Sheinkman
Like everyone else, succumbing to the reflex of denial, Babish initially refused, and then, realizing something, ran to make excuses, while the questions are still being asked by journalists, not investigators. And they can – in the Czech Republic they decided to take this matter seriously.
The Czechs have an equivalent to our “money for money”. Here they say “grandmother to Babish”. A man knows how to live. Because his credo: an oligarch must, first of all, remain … an oligarch. Even if he has been the prime minister for several years and, it seems, he is not supposed to. But he has nothing of the kind. No factories, no steamships. No offshore companies, no estates in France . Not even those two agricultural holdings on which he, in fact, amassed his capital. He also transferred their management to the trusteeship funds. In general, clean as glass. No conflicts of interest.
There is only $ 3 billion in personal fortune. Although after yesterday, his condition is clearly not so hot. Like a butt on the head. He has parliamentary elections at the end of the week, and he was also included in the “Pandora dossier” – a collection of essays by an international consortium of investigative journalists about the involvement of a number of world VIPs, including 35 government leaders, in dubious financial schemes with the option of tax evasion. However, as far as Andrei Babis is concerned, not so much has been written about him.
Therefore, like everyone else, succumbing to the instinct of self-preservation and the reflex of denial, he first went into refusal, and then, realizing something, the first of them ran to make excuses, while the questions are still being asked by journalists on television, and not by investigators in the prosecutor’s office. And they can – in the Czech Republic they decided to take this matter seriously. Still, this is not an explosion in Verbetica – and there are some documents. So the prime minister played ahead of the curve. Yes, he said it was. And there were offshores, but only on the advice of a real estate firm. And the purchase of a luxurious estate in the French Riviera for $ 22 million was, but in 2009, when he did not even think about politics.
“Then there was nothing illegal in this,” he admitted not only to the acquisition of the castle indicated in the disclosures, but also 15 more French real estate objects. If everything is so legal, what is so secret? They did not ask him why none of them were included in his declaration. Everyone already knows that all this property is registered with anyone, but not with the lucky owner. And God would be with him. Let the Czechs figure it out themselves. But if the first went, then the remaining 34, it turns out, not without sin, can draw conclusions in their countries. And they do not have parliamentary elections to blame everything on the intrigues of competitors like Babish.
Before the “dossier” appeared, he himself had a fairly decent chance of repeating the success of 2017. Let his party’s preliminary 27 percent be a couple of points lower than the result of four years ago, but it is quite acceptable for continuing the prime minister’s career. Now, they say, anything is possible. And only one thing should console him. More precisely, not one, but everything – everything that was acquired by back-breaking labor, at the first click, will return to its true owner. He has only to lose the elections.
Courtesy: (Radio Sputnik)
