Premier Submits to President First Proposal for Personnel Change in Gov't

Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) presented the signatures of four independent legislators centred around Rudolf Huliak to President Peter Pellegrini on Thursday, as evidence that Fico has secured the necessary coalition majority of 76 votes in Parliament to keep the government going.

This was confirmed by the President's Office, which added that the Prime Minister's proposal also includes a nomination of Rudolf Huliak to the post of the Minister of Tourism and Sports.  Huliak will replace incumbent minister Dusan Keketi who was a nominee of the SNS party. 

The PM believes that he will submit the second personnel proposal to the president soon. He agrees with the head of state that the decision on personnel proposals should also include the election of the House chair.

"I do respect the president's constitutional powers, as well as the procedure he requested regarding the personnel proposal. I am positive that it's just a matter of time when I present him with the second personnel proposal and the second declaration of support for the government," stated the premier.

The coalition agreement was amended last week, based on which Hlas-SD and SNS lost one ministry each. Smer-SD party will now control the Investment and Tourism Ministries.

The amendment was in response to the changes in the distribution of power in Parliament. Three MPs around Rudolf Huliak, leader of extra-parliamentary National Coalition, quit the SNS caucus and have since been joined by Roman Malatinec from Hlas-SD. The number of MPs of Hlas-SD caucus also decreased after Radomir Šalitroš and Samuel Migaľ were expelled from it.

According to Progressive Slovakia (PS) leader Michal Šimečka, Fico conceded that the chaos of this coalition will continue.  He pointed out that the Prime Minister had originally planned to garner the support from 79 legislators in Parliament as early as on February 17. "Today, it's February 27 and he finally announced that he barely put together 76 of them. He's thus de facto conceding the chaos will continue and that he controls the narrowest possible majority, which he himself previously used to reject as impossible to govern with," claimed Šimečka, adding that early election remains the only real recourse.

The SaS party joined in the criticism. "The coalition made a deal that Huliak is to become the minister of sports, Fico the top moral arbiter, the sun will go up at night, rain fall upwards and everyone understands Andrej [Danko]," the liberals posted sarcastically on their social media.

According to the 'Slovakia' party, the President on Thursday gave up on his promises. "Before the election, he was promising decency and expertise. And now he's going to appoint as the sports minister a guy who insults women and doesn't have the faintest idea about sports," declared the party, adding that on Thursday Pellegrini confirmed that he's only "playing into Fico's hand".

Source: TASR