"For days Slovakia has been in a crisis caused by the fact that a murder was (mis)used for political fights. Early elections would most probably be accompanied by instability and chaos. We don't want to put the country in the hands of the Opposition," said Prime Minister Robert Fico while announcing his intention to resign on Wednesday evening.
Shortly after the Prime Minister's announcement, Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská, from the junior coalition partner Most-Hid, said she would not join the new Government. All her party's MPs, however, have signed for supporting the new Cabinet. The same is true for the MPs of Smer and the Slovak National Party. The opposition, which has been asking for early elections, reacted negatively. The OLaNO party believes that the exchange of chess pieces to restore confidence in the state and its institutions is not sufficient and that the most honest solution is a snap election. The Freedom and Solidarity party has offered a cooperation agreement to all democratic opposition parties. According to former Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, Slovak society has been polarized for a long time, mistrust in the basic democratic institutions is immensely large and powerful. She criticized the ambiguous way in which the Most-Hid party communicated their position on early elections.
A survey carried out over the past week by the Focus agency found that had a snap election been held this weekend, the current governing coalition would only have gained 61 seats in Parliament. Smer party's preferences have been in free fall from 25.5 percent in January this year to 20.2 in the surveyed period. The Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party would have come second, gaining 14 percent of respondents, while the OLaNO and We Are Family-Boris Kollar parties would have shared third position on 10.4 percent each. Most-Hid has remained stable at slightly over 5 percent but the third coalition partner, the Slovak National Party, went up to 10 percent, most probably by stealing some voters from Smer.
Meanwhile, a new wave of protests has been announced for Friday in Bratislava and other localities in Slovakia. According to organizers, the leaders of the three parties of the ruling coalition humiliated and deceived the whole public with their decision. "The efforts by the three coalition leaders, Smer-SD, SNS, and Most-Hid, to maintain power at all costs, are clear evidence that they want to sweep under the carpet all the corruption cases written by the murdered investigative journalist Ján Kuciak," reads a joint statement signed by those who organized last year's students' anti-corruption protest as well as the protests for a decent Slovakia. They see early elections as the only option to try to restore people's trust in the state. On Thursday, the Slovak Academy of Sciences issued a statement of support for "civic initiatives for improving the situation in Slovakia".
