President Zuzana Caputova will meet the leaders of the parliamentary political parties on Wednesday (May 10) to discuss with them the proposed caretaker government, TASR was told by President Office's communication department director Jozef Matej on Tuesday. The president will appoint the caretaker government in the week starting on May 15. Slovak central bank vice-governor Ludovit Odor will be the head of the government of experts.
The OLANO party wants to talk to the President about the composition of the caretaker government, and then it will decide whether its MPs will support the government in the vote of confidence, OLANO parliamentary caucus head Michal Sipos told TASR on Monday. According to him, the support depends on what the government would like to push through. Sipos thinks that the cabinet should work in a maintenance mode. He sees considerations of an earlier election date as a marketing move by Smer -SD.
Interim Premier Eduard Heger hasn't yet said whether Independent MPs operating in his 'Democrats' party support a caretaker government, or not. He underlined he'll wait with statements until the President officially introduces the government. "It is the most correct," said Heger. He didn't want to comment on potential names of ministers, either. Concerning caretaker premier, Ludovit Odor, he considers him to be an expert and an experienced economist.
According to Smer-SD leader Robert Fico, the manner in which the President is forming a caretaker government is contrary to all principles of parliamentary democracy. "The president is completely ignoring the results of the 2020 general election. It is not acceptable for the president not to communicate at all with parliamentary parties in the fourth year of her term," said Fico. In his opinion, Caputova is forming a caretaker government in an anti-democratic manner, noting that future Prime Minister Ludovit Odor doesn't have a say on who will be in his cabinet. Fico at the same time expressed his concerns that the caretaker government will spread a neo-liberal, progressive ideology.
The leader of the Sme rodina party and Parliamentary Chair Boris Kollar said that he could see his MPs expressing confidence in the caretaker government, adding that it depends on the composition of the cabinet and its manifesto. Kollar considers the preparation of the state budget to be the most important task of the caretaker government.
The non-parliamentary Hlas-SD party stated in the past that it was in favour of casting a no-confidence vote for the government of Eduard Heger and having it replaced with a caretaker cabinet, but the party has never said that it would actually grant confidence to such a replacement caretaker cabinet, underlined chairperson Peter Pellegrini at a press conference on Wednesday. "This isn't us being wishy-washy. A caretaker cabinet is better than Heger's any time of day, even though it still has the same powers," stated Pellegrini. He added that President Zuzana Caputova's powers enable her to appoint a caretaker government, but she should have done so much earlier. According to Pellegrini, however, there's a difference between the appointment of the caretaker government and supporting it in a vote of confidence.
(TASR)
