President Zuzana Caputova has announced that she's set to declare a referendum concerning a snap general election. According to the president, the referendum will definitely involve one question, and it'll depend on the Constitutional Court whether there will be a second one. The question that will definitely appear will ask the public whether it agrees that an early termination of the parliamentary electoral term can be carried out via a referendum or a resolution of Parliament. As for the second question, which should ask whether people agree that the incumbent Government should resign immediately, Caputova claimed that she has her doubts regarding its constitutionality, which is why she's decided to ask the Constitutional Court to examine it. The two questions were recently supported by approximately 400,000 people in a referendum petition initiated by the opposition Smer-SD party. The president noted that enough signatures had been submitted to fulfil the prerequisite for declaring a referendum. The one- or two-question referendum will be Slovakia's ninth, but only the one on joining the European Union in 2003 had enough voters turn out to be valid. Addressing the date when the referendum should take place, Caputova claimed that she will not be able to convene it on October 29 – the day of joint regional and municipal elections in the country – as she was previously asked to do by Smer-SD head Robert Fico. The president maintained that it was impossible to meet this deadline. Smer-SD chief Robert Fico said on Monday that the president intentionally didn't convene the referendum on October 29, when joint regional and municipal elections will be held in the country, because she knows that the referendum would be successful if it took place on that day.
Source: TASR
