Andrej Babiš defeated: Is this the end of Czech populism?

This weekend's Czech presidential election runoff was a fight between "democracy, respect for the constitution and a pro-Western orientation against populism, lies and leaning towards Russia,” according to Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

With former military chief Petr Pavel emerging as a strong winner, populist ex-PM Andrej Babiš has suffered his second defeat to an establishment 'elite' in as many years.

At legislative elections in the autumn of 2021, he lost the prime ministership to Fiala, a former university rector — the archetypal establishment job — and head of the Civic Democrats (ODS), a mainstream party.

In Pavel, Czechs are gaining a serious and introspective military hero who says he intends to restore dignity to the presidency after a decade of the plain-speaking and meddling Miloš Zeman, another populist who likely now departs the political scene. 

"Populism is the problem of our time,” Pavel declared on Twitter last June, months before announcing his candidacy.

But analysts aren’t so confident its time has come to an end in the Czech Republic. Although Pavel has succeeded at the ballot box, it is just one battle won, Filip Kostelka, a professor at the European University Institute, said.

But the “struggle between the liberal-democratic and populist camps will continue,” he told Euronews.

Not exactly single-handedly, Babiš was the populist wavefront that broke across the Czech Republic during the 2010s, spurred by public anger towards the European Union following the 2014 migrant crisis and the economic fallout of the Global Financial Crisis.

In 2013, when his newly-minted ANO party came second at a general election and Babiš was named first deputy prime minister, the economy had 0% growth. The previous year, it