BRATISLAVA, January 25, (WEBNOVINY)- Ex-mayor of Bratislava is leaving the coalition KDH and becomes a non-partisan parliamentary deputy. However, he has pledged to continue supporting the ruling coalition in the House. Durkovsky is the first parliamentary deputy this election term who leaves his deputy club to become independent. The ruling majority thus has 78 deputies in the 150-strong Slovak Parliament.
Durkovsky announced his decision to quit to the party leadership on Monday. It accepted his departure. „I am giving up membership to not harm the KDH,“ Durkovsky told journalists following a six-hour marathon of talks. He however plans to return to the KDH after the scandals he is made responsible for will be clarified. He announced that one member of the leadership urged him to return his parliamentary mandate to the party while the other one appealed on him to not quit the party.
The former mayor of Bratislava met the leadership to explain his acting as Bratislva mayor mainly in the cases of the water utility service the Slovak capital of Bratislava, BVS and the Park of Culture and Leisure, PKO. He said that some information that appeared in the media was not true. He underscored that there was no hidden privatization in BVS and that he did not sign anything before the November elections. Durkovsky was also under fire due to alleged overstepping his powers regarding the planned demolition of the PKO. His opponents did not like either hidden privatization of BVS shortly before the municipal race.
KDH Chairman Jan Figel believes that the former mayor of Bratislava acted based on his information, competencies and conscience. He said that the KDH did not interfere in acting of self-governments while these topics are sometimes purposively linked to the KDH. He marked as the joint victory an agreement from Monday that Durkovsky does not want to make the situation complicated for the party while the KDH cannot directly resolve the situation regarding the existing cases. „The attitude of the leadership was expressed by a consensus,“ he said.
The media recently reported about the highly unusual series of transactions that can be seen as privatization of a key part of BVS. he deal was orchestrated by the previous mayor Andrej Durkovsky (KDH) and concluded one day before last year’s municipal elections, they wrote.. The official buyer is the firm HASS from Zlate Moravce, which drew a loan from Privatbanka owned by the financial group Penta for the purchase. The owner of HASS Eduard Hunady is a long-term friend of BVS Director General Daniel Gemeran, who was appointed to office by Durkovsky. According to the press, the suspicious deal involves privatization of a subsidiary company of BVS called Infra Services, which provides maintenance and construction services for BVS on the pipeline and sewage systems and water metering.
SITA