BRATISLAVA, March 6, (WEBNOVINY) – According to Speaker of Parliament and leader of the ruling coalition member the SaS party Richard Sulik, the coalition is not breaking up. Sulik said in the Na Telo political debate program of private television TV Markiza that though the coalition had lost two deputies, namely Andrej Durkovsky (former KDH member) and Igor Matovic (leader of the association Ordinary People, recently expelled from the SaS caucus), he is sure the two parliamentary deputies will not join the opposition. According to him, the coalition just lost two deputies and nothing more. “Three deputies who identify themselves with the association Ordinary People are, and have recently confirmed it again, members of the SaS deputy caucus. The coalition has at least these 77 votes,” said Sulik. He rejected allegations that the coalition majority depends on Igor Matovic. “We are not a government of one party, where the chairman commands and everybody obeys,” argued Sulik, explaining that the government is now formed of parties with a comparable number of won votes. He is not considering extending the coalition with the association Ordinary People, who were elected to parliament on the SaS candidate list, in the form of an annex to the Coalition Treaty. He believes the coalition is able to operate as before.
Deputy leader of the strongest opposition SMER-SD party Pavol Paska can not imagine his party in the government with the current coalition parties. “Simply parties, which define themselves as center-right or conservative, are not able to offer in addition to privatization, growing prices, halted large projects and growth nothing more, just internal disputes,” Paska said. He claims that the dominant election victory of his party has been ignored, leading to “huge chaos and instability, which has reigned here since this conglomerate [of parties] seized power after the 2010 election”. The other problem, according to him, is that ruling coalition members dedicate much energy to internal quarrels.
Sulik claims that in spite of SMER-SD winning a large number of the vote in the last elections, the party’s coalition potential equals zero, “as it was not able to form a government [after the elections] and would not be able to form it today, either”, he said. According to the SaS leader, it is a result of development that several parties distanced themselves from SMER-SD’s politics. Sulik, however, admitted that a lot of energy is needed to harmonize opinions within the current ruling coalition, unlike in the past.
SITA