ZVOLEN, October 29, (WEBNOVINY)- Prime Minister Iveta Radicova is leaving the SDKU-DS party. She announced her decision at a news conference on Saturday after the central board’s meeting. She will quit the party at its congress that is held always after elections according to the SDKU statutes. Radicova said she absolutely comprehends her full responsibility for the failure in negotiations with the coalition partner SaS on the European bailout fund and for not being able to keep the cabinet together for longer than fifteen months. She thinks that she does not have the right to apply for the citizens’s confidence in the upcoming elections.
“We will do all in order to achieve a good outcome in the parliamentary elections but we will give maximum support to the government of Ms. Radicova and fulfill our ministerial duties. Next steps of Ms. Radicova in her private life are exclusively up to her,” said the boss of the party and foreign minister Mikulas Dzurinda.
Radicova specified that she informed the board on what she had already told the party presidium. “I have the duty as the prime minister to lead the Slovak Republic into the early parliamentary elections and I will fulfill it,” she stated. She underscored that while being at the helm of the Cabinet it achieved several successes in the area of justice and also regarding rationalization and savings in the state administration. The Cabinet undertook the fight against illegal buildings and disadvantageous contracts. She however regrets that not all measures were completed.
MOST-HID Chairman Bela Bugar considers the departure of Iveta Radicova from the SDKU-DS a great pity. “Although only after the congress, still the most popular politician of the current ruling coalition will leave,” said Bugar adding that it is not only a loss of the SDKU.
KDH Chairman Jan Figel is sad as well that Radicova decided to end her political career. “She was a great ally for the KDH in efforts for transparency, fight against corruption and the ethic and social dimensions of the politics. KDH Deputy Chairman Pavol Abrhan reacted that prime minister Radicova has brought a new aspect in the Slovak politics in efforts for transparency. “She will be missed on the Slovak political scene from this point of view,” he stated.
The SaS party regrets as well that Iveta Radicova is leaving the political scene. “She has become a prime minister who deserves our respect while the SDKU-DS is losing a politician who has become a symbol of the fight for transparency,” said SaS leader Richard Sulik.
After President Ivan Gasparovic appointed Radicova the head of a caretaker cabinet on October 25 she has announced that she will not run in early general elections. Reasoning her decision to not run Radicova says that she cannot offer that what she offered back in 2010 when she ran with a slogan „we will do it together” but her cabinet has collapsed meanwhile. In elections in 2010, Radicova became the party’s election leader as deputy chairperson of the party. In primary elections, she defeated another deputy chairman, Ivan Miklos. The primaries were held after SDKU-DS chairman Mikulas Dzurinda decided to withdraw from elections after constant attacks by the SMER-SD chairman Robert Fico over unclear party financing in the past.
SITA