BRATISLAVA, May 16, (WEBNOVINY) — If MPs from the ruling coalition pick up ballots papers in the election of the prosecutor general, slated for Tuesday evening, but do not cast them into the ballot box the opposition SMER-SD will consider this an attempt to thwart the election. The party will then support filing a motion with the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic to initiate another repeat. SMER-SD will perceive such conduct as use of a control mechanism that the Constitutional Court explicitly banned, party leader Robert Fico told journalists.
Should this scenario take place, his party will table a proposal for a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Iveta Radicova (SDKU-DS). Fico believes that the refusal to cast ballots is the only means available to the coalition to blackmail its own deputies who would like to support the candidate they consider the best. Fico came to the conclusion that the secret ballot could be thwarted after the news conference by SDKU-DS leader Mikulas Dzurinda, who announced that “it will be good for Slovakia if we stick together. I will do my utmost to keep on going.”
On this occasion, Fico reminded Iveta Radicova of her statements that the ballot would be secret and no control mechanisms would be applied, including taking the ballot papers outside of the voting room. The coalition quartet is, in his words, “a government of an extorted majority” that resorts to thwarting a secret ballot, because it is unable to ensure the election of its own or the opposition’s candidate, and fears that without control, the coalition deputies may behave in contradiction to what the coalition leaders imagine. “They are apparently unable to elect the prosecutor general and therefore, together with Iveta Radicova, they have driven him out of parliament,” Fico remarked on Jozef Centes‘ decision to withdraw his candidacy ahead of the secret ballot on Tuesday.
Regarding the libel lawsuit announced by Iveta Radicova, the opposition leader said that he has forgiven her. “I can imagine the difficult mental state of the prime minister and I therefore forgive her such absurd ideas,” he concluded. Irritated by the statements Fico made at a press conference on Friday, May 13, where he maintained that Jozef Centes‘ decision to not run for the post of prosecutor general ignores the decision of the Constitutional Court and that it would be legally effective only if he had done so before December 2, 2010, Radicova confirmed the plan to sue Fico earlier on Monday.
The secret ballot will be repeated on Tuesday at 5 p.m.
SITA