BRATISLAVA, November 2, (WEBNOVINY) — Jan Hrivnak has become a candidate for Prosecutor General of the strongest member of the ruling coalition, the SDKU-DS party. Members of the deputy caucus of the party and its senior representatives agreed on this candidate at a meeting on Tuesday. Now, the representatives of the SDKU-DS will try to persuade their partners at the Coalition Council to agree to Hrivnak as their joint candidate. Prime Minister Iveta Radicova (SDKU-DS) said after the meeting that she was considering a resignation if her party would not agree on the need of a change at the post of prosecutor general. The Coalition Council is to meet later on Tuesday and the parliament will elect the prosecutor general on Wednesday.
As the SDKU-DS leader Mikulas Dzurinda said, they wanted to achieve that the deputies vote in the freest and the most responsible way and that they would not put pressure their deputies into choosing one particular candidate. The meeting on Tuesday was planned after session of the SDKU-DS leadership failed to choose one candidate of their party. Prime Minister Iveta Radicova also stated last week that the SDKU-DS will be implementing the personnel policy as the opposition SMER-SD.
The election of a new prosecutor general divided the four-party ruling coalition. Three parties, the SaS, Christian Democrats and MOST-HID, proposed a joint candidate, Eva Misikova, currently a prosecutor serving at the Office of the Prosecutor General. MOST-HID leader Bela Bugar had previously suggested that the three parties would support a candidate of the SDKU-DS but the strongest member of the ruling coalition had only agreed to come up with one today. However, two of its MPs tabled their alternative proposals; Jana Dubovcova nominated the Prosecutor at the Special Prosecutor Office, Jan Hrivnak and Stanislav Janis backed the incumbent Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka. However, Trnka’s nomination was also supported by the strongest member of opposition SMER-SD. According to Bugar, if coalition deputies vote for Trnka together with opposition, it could mean the beginning of the end of the coalition. According to the head of KDH Jan Figel, the fact that Misikova’s nomination was signed by 51 deputies needs to be taken into account.
SITA