Three MPs of the centre-right party Sieť, Miroslav Beblavý, Katarína Macháčková and Simona Petrík announced on Monday that they will leave the party if it makes a coalition agreement with Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer party. "The ongoing coalition talks represent not only a violation of our election commitments and promises on part of our top leaders, but it's also extremely bad news for Slovakia", said Beblavý. Without the three MPs, a Sieť parliamentary caucus cannot be formed, as a minimum of eight MPs is required - thus dashing plans for the 85-MP strong governing coalition in a 150 seats Parliament. If a Government headed by Smer-SD and involving Sieť emerges, Macháčková will serve in the Parliament as an Independent. Beblavý refused to comment on his future plans in such a scenario, whereas Petrík announced that she won't relinquish her seat as an MP. Party leader, Radoslav Procházka, sent an internal letter to members explaining that there is no other alternative to joining Smer in the attempt to form a stable Government.
On Tuesday morning Most-Hid Deputy Chairman and MP Zsolt Simon announced he will not join his party's parliamentary caucus if it signs a coalition agreement with Smer and the Slovak National Party. According to him, such a coalition will mean the end of the Most-Híd party. Simon prefers a caretaker government and early elections. Thousands of people, many declaring they voted for the party, have posted messages on Most-Híd's vice-president, Lucia Žitňanská's Facebook page asking her to not join the coalition with Smer. Most-Híd's leader Béla Bugár posted on the party's webpage page a letter explaining to his voters that this is a special moment in Slovakia's history where ideological divisions between the political right and left have to be left aside in order to defend democracy and the pro-European Union values in Slovakia.
