Andrej Babiš's Super PAC
MFD might now be owned by Andrej Babiš, but the newspaper went out of its way on Sat. to give advance notice of a potentially huge advantage Babiš's ANO could have in the election campaign. Babiš said he is planning to appear in TV commercials for his Vodňanské kuře chicken brand, alongside Jaromír Jágr. The law on audiovisual media services (No. 132/2010) bans "commercial messages of political parties and movements," but Babiš said that his chicken ads have been cleared by his lawyers. If these ads are allowed to appear, they could potentially lead to a situation similar to that in the U.S., where a Supreme Court ruling opened the floodgates to billions of dollars in corporate advertising in favor of political candidates. That ruling gave rise to so-called Super PACs that support individual candidates but are not allowed to coordinate their actions with the candidate. Babiš will be taking it a step further. Babiš the businessman will in effect be turning his chicken company into a Super PAC that promotes Babiš the politician.
Glossary of difficult words
Super PAC (Super Political Action Committee) - a committee that may raise unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups and may engage in unlimited political spending as long as it is independent of any candidate;to go out of one's way - to make a special effort to do something;
to clear something - to give approval or authorization to;
to open the floodgates - to perform an action that allows many people to do something that previously was not possible.