Parliament failed to open a special session with a no-confidence motion in Transport Minister Jozef Ráž (a Smer-SD nominee) as the sole point on the agenda. Only 61 MPs out of 150 presented themselves on Monday morning, which was not enough for the House to be quorate.
The opposition failed to open the session even on its second attempt. Until the last moment, everyone waited to see how the Hlas-SD party would respond to the proposal. After the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister for the Recovery Plan Peter Kmec, the party demanded the same treatment for Jozef Ráž. In the end, they excused themselves from the negotiations. Peter Žiga explained the reason saying: “This is how we decided.”
MPs will have a third attempt on Tuesday, at 7:30 p.m.
The motion to dismiss Ráž was initiated by opposition MPs from the 'Slovensko' party –Za ľudí parliamentary caucus after they collected the more than 30 signatures required to convene a special session from all opposition parties. They filed a respective motion last week.
According to the opposition, the main reason for the minister's ouster is the series of rail accidents that have taken place in recent weeks. Ráž offered his resignation to PM Robert Fico (Smer-SD), but the latter didn't accept it.
Source: TASR
