CZECH REPUBLIC: Populist billionaire Andrej Babis, who leads the centrist Ano (Yes) movement, said yesterday that early elections may be necessary to break the country’s political stalemate.

His party topped October’s general election, but his minority government failed to win a mandatory confidence vote in parliament in January and had to resign.

President Milos Zeman asked him to try again, but his efforts to create a coalition with the Social Democrats, backed from outside government by the Communist Party, collapsed on Thursday evening.