After more than a week of the ongoing coalition crisis, the Education Minister Peter Plavčan, a Slovak National Party nominee, stepped down from his position, due to the controversy connected to the distribution of EU funds. The Slovak National Party's leader Andrej Danko must now come up with the name of the new minister. Independent MP Miroslav Beblavý, however, does not believe that any new Slovak National Party nominee in the position will be better.
"I ask them to look for a crisis manager, I ask them to find someone who at least stabilises the situation in education", stated Beblavý in reaction to the developments at the ministry.
The opposition MP Igor Matovič claims that the problems at the Education Ministry started harming the popularity of the strongest coalition party SMER-SD, and that is why the PM Robert Fico became involved. The majority of opposition MPs see the solution to the coalition crisis in early elections. This notion, however, has been strongly rejected by the leaders of SMER-SD and Most-Híd.
"Early elections are not an option for us, and when I say us I mean the whole of Slovakia. The PM has underlined several times how important it is for us to be in the core of the European Union and such destabilisation wouldn't help it at all," explained Most-Híd chairman Béla Bugár.
The Slovak National Party's leader and Parliament Speaker Andrej Danko is disappointed with the situation and he has decided to take four days to think it over.
"I will consider how and whether to remain in the politics", said Danko on Wednesday evening. He will meet with his coalition partners next week.
According to political analyst Grigorij Mesežnikov from the Public Affairs Institute, by agreeing to remove his party's nominee from a ministerial post, Andrej Danko must have realised that he would not gain anything from the "game he started". Mesežnikov think that after the EU funds scandal at the Education Ministry and the current governing coalition crisis, the Slovak National Party will certainly not score well in public opinion polls.
