President Zuzana Caputova took the floor in Parliament on Tuesday to deliver this year's State of the Republic address. Caputova stressed that despite efforts to look for solutions and maintain hope within society, the address will be among the most severe and perhaps even the most critical one yet. The president spoke about Slovakia experiencing the most perilous times in terms of security, rejected general condemnation of doctors for individual failures, appealed to the justice system to stop underestimating verbal attacks, and labelled the energy crisis as one of the greatest challenges of 2023. The President also said that the political crisis in Slovakia is threatening to grow into a serious crisis of democracy, in which case it would be better to allow the public to elect their representatives anew.
According to the president, there has been chaos in domestic politics this year, and the public has been losing track of who is really in the Government and who is in the opposition. "Coalition politicians have often been greater adversaries to each other than the opposition has been to them, and mutual attacks have resulted in the departure of a coalition party [from the Government]," she remarked. In her opinion, the rule of a minority Government has been accompanied by a weakening of the functionality of Parliament, with failures to initiate sessions, a number of postponements of the same, and the unclear way in which the Government is supported in the House. Such a manner of governing would exhaust the country even in good times, which Slovakia is not experiencing at the moment, she told the present MPs and ministers.
Caputova claimed that every politician has his or her share of the blame for the current political crisis in the country. As a result, the Government, according to opinion polls, has very low credibility, and the authority of the state and of democracy is disappearing. "A part of the opposition is also contributing to this significantly by attacking ever more harshly not only its opponents, but also democracy itself," she stressed. According to the president, the Government finds itself in an objectively difficult situation due to the current crises. However, she considers it dangerous that the Government is managing many of these crises in a way that causes drama right up until the final moments. "We aren't football fans, choosing who we root for or trust more. We are people who need to know what to prepare for," she noted, adding that things cannot go on like this without destroying the last remnants of public trust in the state and social cohesion.
"The goal of politics should not be to eliminate the adversary. Slovak political reality seems to be reduced to just that, but politics is supposed to be an instrument for performing a service, an instrument for managing public affairs for the benefit of the people," she said. (TASR)
More information about the President’s address can be found in the Topical Issue section.
