Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[Estrella]

Let's see how long it lasts.

Four days. It lasted four days!

Sulík: "During his one year in government, Igor Matovič has shown that he lacks the capability to lead a country, refuses to honour agreements, pays insufficient attention to non-pandemic matters and dramatically divides the society. We request his departure from the post of Prime Minister."

He gave Matovič an ultimatum: resign by March 24, or SaS will leave the government.

_{also yay, 10 pages!}

[Estrella]

Veronika Remišová, the leader of Za ľudí, announced that she agrees with Sulík: Matovič needs to go, in fact he needs to go right now.

Very nice of both of them to do this on the Ides of March.

[Estrella]

Matovič has met with the president, but he hasn't said anything about his resignation. SaS decided that they've had enough and announced that all of their ministers are leaving the government sometime in the next few days (= they're giving Matovič a couple days' time to come to his senses).

[Astatine]

So, if German media reported correctly, Matovič offered his resignation, but under the condition that he continues to serve as leader of OL'ano, a bit similar to the Fico/Pellegrini situation. But the other parties refused that deal as this would allow him to "govern from the backseat", stating that he still hasn't understood that he himself is the problem.

I love Slovak politics.

[Estrella]

So, if German media reported correctly, Matovič offered his resignation, but under the condition that he continues to serve as leader of OL'ano, a bit similar to the Fico/Pellegrini situation. But the other parties refused that deal as this would allow him to "govern from the backseat", stating that he still hasn't understood that he himself is the problem.

I love Slovak politics.

It's all terribly complicated, you see.

Matovič announced that he's willing to resign and serve as a minister instead, but he had some conditions: he requested that Richard Sulík, Mária Kolíková (Minister of Justice for Za ľudí), Juraj Šeliga (Deputy PM for Za ľudí) and Jana Bittó Cigániková (chairwoman of parliamentary healthcare committee for SaS) resign, and that SaS give up one of their ministries to OĽaNO. You won't be surprised to learn that the thing these people have in common is that they're his most ardent critics and regular targets of his deranged late-night Facebook statuses. It's a very clumsy pseudo-strategical cover for a personal vendetta, but what else would you expect from a press conference that starts with sixty seconds of Prime Minister staring silently into the camera.

The reaction of Sulík and SaS was thus: he's resigning from his position as Minister of Economy with immediate effect, he's refusing all other demands and insists that Matovič cannot be a minister; however, if Matovič insists on being a minister anyway, then he's staying, despite the fact that he already handed in his resignation letter. He's also categorically against an early election and even if he leaves the government, he won't vote against it on a vote of confidence - probably, that is.

Veronika Remišová, the leader of Za ľudí, refused the demands for resignation of her minister and deputy PM deputy speaker, but insisted that Matovič must go, but also insisted that the current four-party coalition must stay.

Boris Kollár and Sme rodina are trying to be the adults in the room and have taken a neutral position on the whole should-Matovič-go-or-not question, except for the completely out of the blue resignation of their Minister of Labour, Milan Krajniak (happened last Monday, actually). Krajniak stated that his resignation was to show that "Sme rodina is willing to give up something to keep the coalition together", which is utterly bizarre and IMO just bullsh/t because nobody asked anything from them.

Do you understand what everyone is doing here? No? Good, because I don't understand it either.

[Estrella]

lmaooo

Sulík: Igor Matovič as a minister? Ministry of Magic would be a good idea.

[Estrella]

lmaooo

Sulík: Igor Matovič as a minister? Ministry of Magic would be a good idea.

A segment from that interview where Sulík simply and concisely explains the current situation:

The original demand was that he should leave the position of Prime Minister. Igor Matovič said many times that if he leaves the premiership, he is leaving politics. That was what we based everything on. But I offered him that if he leaves the cabinet, I'll leave the cabinet. In the last couple of days it somehow changed, he says okay, I'm not gonna be the PM, but I'll be a member of the cabinet. I said to that, okay, our request that he resign as PM is fulfilled, but in that case I'm not leaving either, I'm staying there with Igor Matovič.

[Estrella]

Matovič announced that he's willing to resign and serve as a minister instead, but he had some conditions: he requested that Richard Sulík, Mária Kolíková (Minister of Justice for Za ľudí), Juraj Šeliga (Deputy PM for Za ľudí) and Jana Bittó Cigániková (chairwoman of parliamentary healthcare committee for SaS) resign, and that SaS give up one of their ministries to OĽaNO. You won't be surprised to learn that the thing these people have in common is that they're his most ardent critics and regular targets of his deranged late-night Facebook statuses. It's a very clumsy pseudo-strategical cover for a personal vendetta, but what else would you expect from a press conference that starts with sixty seconds of Prime Minister staring silently into the camera.

Another "haha what the f/ck" moment: I was watching the press conference last night and I distinctly remember him calling him a podpredseda vlády (deputy prime minister), when Šeliga is in fact podpredseda Národnej rady (deputy speaker).

In any case, Šeliga announced that he's willing to resign, despite his party leader saying the opposite.

[Estrella]

Matovič announced that he's willing to resign and serve as a minister instead, but he had some conditions: he requested that Richard Sulík, Mária Kolíková (Minister of Justice for Za ľudí), Juraj Šeliga (Deputy PM for Za ľudí) and Jana Bittó Cigániková (chairwoman of parliamentary healthcare committee for SaS) resign, and that SaS give up one of their ministries to OĽaNO.

And Kolíková announced she's resigning tomorrow.

Is your head spinning from all of this? Here's Estrella's Exclusive Resign-O-Tracker™! Watch the cabinet fall apart in real time!

was forced to resign
resigned of their own volition
resigning on March 23
resigning on March 24/25
has threatened to resign
needs to resign for the crisis to end
——————————————————————————————
Prime Minister: Igor Matovič (OĽaNO)
Finance: Eduard Heger (OĽaNO)
Interior: Roman Mikulec (OĽaNO)
Foreign and European Affairs: Ivan Korčok (SaS)
Economy: Richard Sulík (SaS)
Health: Marek Krajčí (OĽaNO)
Education: Branislav Gröhling (SaS)
Defence: Jaroslav Naď (OĽaNO)
Labour and Social Affairs: Milan Krajniak (SR)
Justice: Mária Kolíková (ZĽ)
Transport: Andrej Doležal (SR)
Culture: Natália Milanová (OĽaNO)
Agriculture: Ján Mičovský (OĽaNO)
Environment: Ján Budaj (OĽaNO)
Regional Development and Investments: Veronika Remišová (ZĽ)

[Estrella]

He's done.

The government is not a corporation where shareholders decide on its activities based on how they will personally benefit. The government is an instrument of public power that should serve the people. The government and its functioning are in the public interest.

That is why I'm now publicly stating what I told the Prime Minister privately last week: it is necessary that he resign to enable his coalition partners to reach an agreement. The position and status of any one person is not and can not be more important than the interest of the country and its citizens.

[Former President tack50]

Can the president unilaterally fire the prime minister? I imagine it is one of those "emergency powers" that are never meant to be used? (if it even exists at all)

Slovak politics look like a comical headache tbh

[Estrella]

Can the president unilaterally fire the prime minister? I imagine it is one of those "emergency powers" that are never meant to be used? (if it even exists at all)

Um... maybe? The Constitution (here's the English version) says

(1) The Prime Minister shall be appointed and recalled by the President of the
Slovak Republic.

but also

(6) If the National Council of the Slovak Republic has passed a vote of no
confidence in an individual member of the Government, the President of the Slovak
Republic shall recall the member. The recall of the Prime Minister shall result in the
resignation of the Government.

The way it's written (both in Slovak and here) makes it unclear if she actually has the power to fire him without a vote of no confidence - I interpreted it that she doesn't, and (6) only specifies the circumstances where (1) applies, but who knows.

It probably doesn't matter, though. By openly calling for his resignation, she has already broken a precedent and I don't think she wants to go further. Even in the late 90s, when relations between the authoritarian Prime Minister and the strongly critical President were much worse*, the President didn't do something like this. Some years before, in 1994, President's strong criticism of the cabinet was enough for a vote of no confidence. Today, the cabinet is basically falling apart anyway, and she only speeded up the process towards either a resignation or a vote of no confidence.

* considering that the PM ordered the intelligence service to kidnap the President's son, this might be an understatement

Slovak politics look like a comical headache tbh

Yes.

[Estrella]

Just to show you what an absolutely ridiculous politician Igor Matovič is, here are some of his best, uhm, performances in parliament:


That time an MP admitted to having tried heroin and meth, and Matovič then dumped a bag of syringes on his head.


That time Matovič and his party colleagues dumped €12 million worth of fake banknotes on parliament floor.

That time... okay, this needs an explanation. In 2014, it was revealed that the hospital in Piešťany bought a CT scanner for an inflated price, which prompted suspicions of corruption. One of the people on the hospital's managing board was a certain Michal Straka, whose main qualification for the job is... being a musician known as Ego. Matovič played the video with Ego's response in parliament, which would not be so strange if Ego didn't segue from the talking about how amazing the new scanner is to insulting his cousin's husband, saying that he's a "cruel racist rat" who needs to die along with his "f/cked up mother" and calling his daughters whores.

Also, I only found tabloids writing about this, but Ego is apparently friends with Mikuláš Černák, a 90s mafia boss (and tiger lover) currently in jail for 20 counts of murder. Nominating this guy to a hospital board was honestly peak Smer.

tl;dr that his premiership ends with a dramatic kaboom is not surprising at all

[Estrella]

SaS made good on their ultimatum and officially left the coalition after resignation of all of their ministers. Over the last two weeks, Sme rodina and Za ľudí were more concillatory towards Matovič and tried to present themselves as a "third way" between him and Sulík, but not anymore: Boris Kollár of Sme rodina said that "unless the situation gets sorted out immediately, I refuse to participate in this circus", while Za ľudí came up with an ultimatum of their own: a solution has to be found until Monday, otherwise they "refuse to participate in a government that doesn't work".

Anyway, here's how the cabinet looks like right now:

still in office resigned threatening to resign

Prime Minister: Igor Matovič (OĽaNO)
Finance: Eduard Heger (OĽaNO)
Interior: Roman Mikulec (OĽaNO)
Foreign and European Affairs: Ivan Korčok (SaS)
Economy: Richard Sulík (SaS)
Health: Marek Krajčí (OĽaNO)
Education: Branislav Gröhling (SaS)
Defence: Jaroslav Naď (OĽaNO)
Labour and Social Affairs: Milan Krajniak (SR)
Justice: Mária Kolíková (ZĽ)
Transport: Andrej Doležal (SR)
Culture: Natália Milanová (OĽaNO)
Agriculture: Ján Mičovský (OĽaNO)
Environment: Ján Budaj (OĽaNO)
Regional Development and Investments: Veronika Remišová (ZĽ)

And these are the numbers in the National Council:

Government 53
OĽaNO 53

Government (sort of) 27
Sme rodina 17
Za ľudí 10

Opposition (sort of) 15
SaS 13
Independent (ex-Za ľudí) 2

Opposition 55
Smer 26
Hlas 11
Republika (ex-ĽSNS) 5
KDŽP (ex-ĽSNS) 3
Independent (ex-Smer) 1

[PSOL]

Wait, L’SNS split again? When, and what for, was this with Respublika?

So how have Fico and Pellegrini reacted to all this? How have they managed to differentiate their two parties?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Wait, L’SNS split again? When, and what for, was this with Respublika?

So how have Fico and Pellegrini reacted to all this? How have they managed to differentiate their two parties?

Well, some people are still wondering why Czechia left too.

[Estrella]

Wait, L’SNS split again? When, and what for, was this with Respublika?

It's still just this thing again:

In reaction to ĽSNS leader Marian Kotleba forcing through a change to party statutes that entrenched his position and made him basically unremovable, five MPs and one MEP left the party. Last year, several MPs left ĽSNS after breaking off KDH due to being insufficiently theocratic, running on ĽSNS lists in 2020 and discovering that Nazism might not be compatible with Christian values. This means that ĽSNS lost almost half their caucus - they're down to 9 MPs from 17 at the start of the legislature.

Republika are the people who left due to the statutes change, KDŽP (Christian Democracy - Life and Prosperity) are the Christians. The latter have zero chance of getting anywhere and their best chance is begging KDH to take them back. The former want to be an alternative to ĽSNS without the crazy parts (e.g. their logo is just the outline of Slovakia, while the ĽSNS logo was ripped off from Hlinka Guard). Republika actually isn't a new party - Milan Mazurek just bought and renamed a party called HLAS ĽUDU (VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, yes, all capitals), which, in turn, originated from a Sme rodina* MP buying and renaming HZD (Movement for Democracy), the party of former president Ivan Gašparovič, which in turn was a splinter from Mečiar's HZDS.

* Itself a party created by buying a renaming SOSKA (Party of Citizens of Slovakia, an HZD splinter, incidentally created by the same guy that would later create HLAS ĽUDU) after and unsuccessful attempt to buy and rename Náš kraj (Our Region), an eastern regionalist party, which was later renamed Váš kraj (Your region), then Korektúra – Andrej Hryc (Correcture; Andrej Hryc is an actor who founded the liberal anti-Mečiar radio station Twist) and currently goes by Pirátska strana – Slovensko (Pirate Party – Slovakia).

Is it clear?

Wait, L’SNS split again? When, and what for, was this with Respublika?

So how have Fico and Pellegrini reacted to all this? How have they managed to differentiate their two parties?

They've joined forces to collect signatures to call a referendum to call an early election. That'd most likely be unconstitutional, so who knows if it goes anywhere.

Otherwise, Pelle tries to be the reasonable guy who criticizes the government for not taking care of citizens, while Fico is his old acerbic self ("dear friends, an old piece of wisdom says that when a brothel isn't working, you should change the girls, not the beds"), with an added dose of conspiracy theories (something about the American ambassador visiting the President on the day she met with Matovič). I think seeing Pelle leave him in the dust in the polls broke his brain.

[MRCVzla]

Government trainweck aside, a few days ago this news became under the radar, Hungarian minority parties are going to merge.
https://twitter.com/MrVictorPhineas/status/1374336499852906499

[Estrella]

Government trainweck aside, a few days ago this news became under the radar, Hungarian minority parties are going to merge.
https://twitter.com/MrVictorPhineas/status/1374336499852906499

Wouldn't necessarily call it good news (I wrote about why all these parties suck on pages 8-9 ITT), but yeah, it's happened. But support for Hungarian parties has cratered so much that even this might not be enough to cross the threshold: they won only 5.95% together in the last election (as opposed to the 10-12% SMK used to get), and these kinds of alliances tend to underperform their "theoretical" result.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Jana Bittó Cigániková (chairwoman of parliamentary healthcare committee for SaS)

Don't remove that cutie-pie.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

@Estrella
so what happens with Hungarian votes? For more than 10 years SMK is out of parliament, Most took their position, but then last year they are also kicked out of parliament. Where Hungarian votes went last year?

[Flyersfan232]

Babis should take the chance to invade

[Estrella]

@Estrella
so what happens with Hungarian votes? For more than 10 years SMK is out of parliament, Most took their position, but then last year they are also kicked out of parliament. Where Hungarian votes went last year?

There are no poll crosstabs by nationality, so the best things we have are results from places like, say, Dunajská Streda district, which is 80% or so Hungarian.

2020
MKÖ-MKS 43%
Most-Híd 17%
OĽaNO 16%
PS-Spolu 4%
Za ľudí 4%
Smer-SD 4%
Sme rodina 4%
SaS 3%
ĽSNS 1%
others 4%

For comparision:

2016
SMK-MKP 42%
Most-Híd 34%
Smer-SD 5%
SaS 4%
OĽaNO 4%
Sme rodina 3%
#Sieť 2%
ĽSNS 1%
SNS 1%
others 4%

So looks like a clear majority of Hungarians still voted for ethnic parties, as for the rest it's mostly OĽaNO, with crumbs going to PS-Spolu and Za ľudí.

[Estrella]

Babis should take the chance to invade

F/ck no. There's a reason we sent him to Czechia to let them deal with him (he's from Bratislava, you know - and you can hear it when he speaks).

[Estrella]

Matovič has given up on trying to convince SaS to come back and he's currently trying to put together an OĽaNO+Sme rodina+Za ľudí coalition. Sme rodina might be okay with it if they get sufficient concessions, but with Za ľudí it's looking unlikely. Their backbenchers are already hinting towards leaving the party if the leadership decides to go ahead - two have already done so when this whole crisis started. A three-party coalition could only afford to lose 5 MPs (equivalent to half of Za ľudí caucus) before they lose their majority.