Slovak Elections and Politics: presidential runoff on 6 April 🇸🇰

[Estrella]

Is permission from the National Council to arrest Fico a foregone conclusion?

I think they only need a simple majority, so I'd say it is.

Small correction: they need an absolute majority. That's 76 votes. I don't expect that to change anyth-

hahahahahahaha 74 yes, 49 no, 19 abstained, 8 present but did not vote

Thanks Sme rodina (abstentions) and Hatráková with Tabák* (two OĽaNO MPs who voted yes and were immediately expelled from the party). FWIW, Sulík is calling this "the biggest defeat in Matovič's political career" and the SaS caucus chairwoman called a press conference where she publicly mused about whether there's any point to continuing the coalition.

_{* Romana Tabák, known for 1) being a former tennis player 2) making an idiot of herself 3) opposing the delivery of Slovak S-300 missiles to Ukraine, to which the minister of defense replied "the only rocket Tabák understands is the tennis one"}

Oh my god that's hilarious. Is this vote final and irreversible unless new charges are laid?

I'm reading vague and conflicting things about that and I've been wrong before, so I'd rather not say anything. But I should note that this vote was on whether he can be arrested during the investigation and possible trial, so he's not out of the woods yet - though it does show how weak the coalition actually is.

[Estrella]

We might be heading towards another coalition crisis. Kollár has no regrets about his party's abstention in the vote on Fico, Matovič is claiming Sulík wants to collapse the government, Kollár and Sulík are arguing about a new social program for families with children - the former told the latter to "go to a toy store and buy an abacus", SaS is claiming that Matovič's support of that program is a breach of what they agreed on during coalition negotiations,...

Oh and Matovič also did a Boris (no, not Kollár) and had to pay a €250 fine for breaking pandemic measures.

[Estrella]

There's also this. Sme Rodina MP Martin Borguľa is being investigated by the National Criminal Agency for... bribing the National Criminal Agency not to investigate him - specifically giving €50,000 to the director of agency's financial unit and an investigator. He's been swimming in controversy for some time: dubious subsidies for a power plant he owns, overpriced cleaning contracts with the Ministry of Defence and more - all of which, unsurprisingly, happened under Smer governments.

[Estrella]

Štefan Harabin. HZDS politician, Minister of Justice (2006–2009), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1998–2003, 2009–2014), founder of nationalist party Vlasť, presidential candidate in 2019 (14.3%). Known for his off-the-scale-far-right political views, being friends with Albanian narcos, illegally paying himself €113,000 as Chief Justice, his claims to have been the victim of a failed assassination attempt carried out by the means of a falling chandelier, his bizarre style of speaking where he em-pha-si-zes eve-ry oth-er word or just randomly starts rapping, organizing Supreme Court sessions in places such as the municipal ballroom in Sobrance (population 6,101), saying that employing gay people as teachers is a violation of the constitution... you get the point.

His connection to reality has always been a little tenuous, but he lost his marbles completely during the pandemic - he refused to wear a mask even in court and multiple times caused a scene that required police involvement. He now spends his time making Youtube videos with titles such as "Hitler-worshipping Ukranonazi violently prevented me from laying a bouquet" or "Fanatical Hitlerist Čaputová fradulently in presidential office".

...what did I want to say? Ah, yesterday he was arrested and charged with extremism in relation to his statements about the war.

[Estrella]

The last, what, ten pages of this thread are basically just crime news and cabinet crises. I don't think this'll change anytime soon.

Kollár and Sulík are arguing about a new social program for families with children - the former told the latter to "go to a toy store and buy an abacus", SaS is claiming that Matovič's support of that program is a breach of what they agreed on during coalition negotiations...

The social program has been officially announced, accompanied by some creepy rhetoric from OĽaNO MPs about how "children are for God's glory". The problem is that Matovič wants to pay for this by increasing taxes on some big corporations, something to which Sulík is clearly opposed. He exercised his right to veto any policy as provided for by the coalition agreement. Matovič flat out said he's going to ignore that and pass the law, veto or no veto. Sulík didn't take kindly to this and he's now threatening to stop adhering to the agreement. Not leave the coalition, mind you, only ignore the coalition agreement.

This is like the millionth time this government is falling apart and IMO this op-ed illustrates very well why people stopped caring:

Sulík's threat that he will stop adhering to the coalition agreement if OĽaNO forces through laws even over their veto is not very serious. Violations like this wouldn't be anything new for this coalition. Government staying in power even with a formally void coalition agreement would be a non-standard scenario, but in Slovakia we're already used to various transgressions of written and unwritten rules. In any case, making the interparty/interpersonal relations between Sulík and Matovič worse than they are now would be impossible. Officially ripping the agreement to pieces won't change anything.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The last, what, ten pages of this thread are basically just crime news and cabinet crises.

Sometimes in the same post. It's a great thread, a real forum highlight.

[Estrella]

Matovič came up with a bizarre idea to allocate time on political debates on TV according to parties' parliamentary representation. Even though he still intends to present a bill to implement it, it was shot down very quickly and turned him into an even bigger target of ridicule than usual. More importantly, his welfare package got passed after all, thanks to the votes of Kotleba's neo-Nazi ĽSNS. This has caused much consternation to put it mildly, and there have been rumours about President rejecting it on principle to maintain the cordon sanitaire, but I don't see that happening. She's smarter than that.

Only a few days after this accomplishment, the "new majority" is flexing its muscles again. OĽANO MP György Gyimesi and ex-ĽSNS Tomáš Taraba presented a bill to ban the display of rainbow flag on public buildings (something which is pretty rare anyway). Heger asked Gyimesi to withdraw it, as did all of SaS, but he refused: "I respect the Prime Minister, his opinion and values, but I'm not going to withdraw the bill".

On another note, I found this very interesting poll of Slovaks' trust in various institutions:



Colours should be obvious. From top to bottom:
Armed Forces
Police
President
Office of the Special Prosecutor (in charge of key corruption cases)
Office of Prosecutor General
Courts
Cabinet
Parliament

[Estrella]

More importantly, his welfare package got passed after all, thanks to the votes of Kotleba's neo-Nazi ĽSNS. This has caused much consternation to put it mildly, and there have been rumours about President rejecting it on principle to maintain the cordon sanitaire, but I don't see that happening. She's smarter than that.

I really need to stop predicting things. She vetoed the law and sent it to the Constitutional Court to examine the legality of the expedited legislative process used to pass it, including the lack of any consultations with civil servants from affected ministries, experts and the public.

[Former President tack50]

More importantly, his welfare package got passed after all, thanks to the votes of Kotleba's neo-Nazi ĽSNS. This has caused much consternation to put it mildly, and there have been rumours about President rejecting it on principle to maintain the cordon sanitaire, but I don't see that happening. She's smarter than that.

I really need to stop predicting things. She vetoed the law and sent it to the Constitutional Court to examine the legality of the expedited legislative process used to pass it, including the lack of any consultations with civil servants from affected ministries, experts and the public.

https://twitter.com/jeestunautre17/status/1539647057216303106

I assume this means it passed after all? What more can you tell us about that? Is the cordon sanitaire dead? (also for some reason I thought L'SNS was basically now gone as it's polling at basically 0%?)

[Estrella]

More importantly, his welfare package got passed after all, thanks to the votes of Kotleba's neo-Nazi ĽSNS. This has caused much consternation to put it mildly, and there have been rumours about President rejecting it on principle to maintain the cordon sanitaire, but I don't see that happening. She's smarter than that.

I really need to stop predicting things. She vetoed the law and sent it to the Constitutional Court to examine the legality of the expedited legislative process used to pass it, including the lack of any consultations with civil servants from affected ministries, experts and the public.

https://twitter.com/jeestunautre17/status/1539647057216303106

I assume this means it passed after all? What more can you tell us about that? Is the cordon sanitaire dead? (also for some reason I thought L'SNS was basically now gone as it's polling at basically 0%?)

It passed, to real or faux outrage from basically everyone. Even some supporters.

The cordon is dead too, though I'll say that 1) there were plenty of holes in it to begin with and 2) this is a godsend for Hlas/Smer: it was always expected that they'd be the first to break it, but after the next election they can just point at the coalition and go "see, they did it first!" ĽSNS is not quite dead, and in any case parties polling at 0% can still have some relevance until they disappear at the next election: just ask SDKÚ.

Re: the aforementioned rainbow flag ban. One OĽaNO MP introduced it, and now two OĽaNO MPs, among many others, have hung the flag outside their offices. Matovič stll isn't saying anything. Coherence!

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

https://twitter.com/ZiemowitSzcze11/status/1543985574897500161?t=W4dM5aFJYsWWvB6...

[Estrella]

https://twitter.com/ZiemowitSzcze11/status/1543985574897500161?t=W4dM5aFJYsWWvB6...

Looks like a retired wrestler failing at black tie. I suppose that fits.

[Estrella]

the ride never ends

"The biggest problem of our coalition is called Igor Matovič" said SaS leader Richard Sulík on Wednesday after a meeting of the party council. The 13-member body, together with SaS ministers and MPs decided that if the OĽaNO leader doesn't leave the government by the end of summer, in September all four SaS ministers will resign.

Giving themselves quite a bit of time I see.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Did things between SMER and HLAS cool down, can we respect that coalition in the future?

[Estrella]

Did things between SMER and HLAS cool down, can we respect that coalition in the future?

At the moment I'd describe them as an amicably divorced couple who still run a business together. Unless something weird happens in the next two years (and it very well might!), the obvious coalition after the next election will be Hlas+Smer+?.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Did things between SMER and HLAS cool down, can we respect that coalition in the future?

At the moment I'd describe them as an amicably divorced couple who still run a business together. Unless something weird happens in the next two years (and it very well might!), the obvious coalition after the next election will be Hlas+Smer+?.

I've noticed Polish observers of Slovak politics start to describe the Smer/Hlas split as essentially a tactical maneuver, possibly agreed in advance, to lock down different segments of the electorate. Is this view/suspicion shared by anyone in Slovakia?

[Estrella]

Did things between SMER and HLAS cool down, can we respect that coalition in the future?

At the moment I'd describe them as an amicably divorced couple who still run a business together. Unless something weird happens in the next two years (and it very well might!), the obvious coalition after the next election will be Hlas+Smer+?.

I've noticed Polish observers of Slovak politics start to describe the Smer/Hlas split as essentially a tactical maneuver, possibly agreed in advance, to lock down different segments of the electorate. Is this view/suspicion shared by anyone in Slovakia?

People notice that they never attack each other, but I don't think I've heard anyone explicitly say that - in any case, most political observers are focused on the trashfire of a government (latest news is Kollár would consider an early election if SaS quits). Maybe journalists would be interested in digging deeper if Pellegrini tried to distance himself from Fico, but the two are seen as a package deal anyway.

_{(It's kinda funny there are any Polish observers of Slovak politics. Here, even the sort of people who really care about international politics mention Poland like once a year when PiS does something stupid.)}

[Estrella]

On October 29th, Slovakia will go to polls. Here's a brief introduction to Slovakia's local government.

Regional and local elections used to be out of sync by a year, but the terms of regional governors and councillors, last elected in 2017, were lengthened from four to five years so that they match the four year terms of mayors and municipal councillors last elected in 2018.

At the highest level, Slovakia is divided into eight regions (kraje, officially samosprávne kraje [self-governing regions] or vyššie územné celky [higher territorial units]). Traditional Slovak regional divisions are largely based on the old counties. All Czechoslovak and Slovak governments have ignored this, but the present regional map, instituted by Vladimír Mečiar in 1996 is particularly bad. It's as if it was drawn by someone who has never stepped foot outside Bratislava. My own Trnava region is charitably a collection of bits and pieces that didn't fit anywhere else and uncharitably an ethnic gerrymander to split the Hungarian-majority areas in the southwest of the country in two. Just about the only good thing about the map is that the regions have roughly equal populations, between 580,000 (Trenčín) and 830,000 (Prešov).

_{Oh, and every region has their own flag, as you can see on the map, but they all kinda suck. They also have proper heraldic coats of arms, prominently displayed on all official documents, announcements and public buildings, which I gotta say is more charming than those fancy minimalist logos you get elsewhere}

Regions are responsible for public transport, all roads except motorways and primary highways, healthcare (incl. operating some hospitals, issuing permits to open doctors' offices and regulating maximum payments to skip the waiting list for appointments), social services (incl. seniors' homes, rehabs and orphanages), high schools (incl. appointing headmasters), vocational education, training courses, environmental protection, cycling infrastructure, tourism, libraries, theatres, museums, cultural events, and most importantly "regional development" (i.e. allocating funding from the EU). Confusingly, regional administrative offices were abolished in 2013 and their powers transferred to "district offices at regional headquarters".

Regional elections were introduced in 2001. Turnout is usually not that bad (it was 49% in 2017), but two-round elections for governors were abolished after 2013 - they were, admittedly, kind of pointless. Since 2017, governors are elected by straight FPTP. Regions are divided into districts (more on them below) that are used to elect councillors by block voting - not an ideal system, but it doesn't really matter since most candidates are independents anyway. We are going to elect 8 governors and 416 regional councillors.

I'd wanted to write a longer analysis of previous elections but really, why. Elections are fought almost entirely on local issues and who can brag about having laid down more kilometres of new asphalt (electoral catnip everywhere, but especially in rural shxtholes where the roads were last repaved under Husák). I've already received a few leaflets. None of them mentioned a political party, but they all had pictures of new bike paths, smiling children, village fairs and "has been endorsed by over 100 mayors!".

Nevertheless, national issues do sometimes influence these elections. The 2017 results were a landslide for independents (2 governors and 39% of regional deputies), but they were also considered pretty bad for Smer: they lost 4 of the 6 regions they won in 2013 and almost half of their deputies. In most regions, the centre-right opposition presented a common candidate. They won in five: Prešov Region went to KDH, Košice to SaS, Bratislava to an independent, Žilina and Trnava to OĽaNO. Smer held Trenčín and Nitra, the latter usually not the most Smer-friendly place. In the Banská Bystrica region, Marian Kotleba of ĽSNS, who won a shocking second-round victory in 2013, lost to independent Ján Luntner by a 29-point margin.

The parties with second and third largest number of deputies were KDH and SMK, always stronger in local elections due to their good organization and regional bases. SMK is, obviously, strong with the Hungarian minority, while KDH is strong in the more religious north of the country. Goral villages in Orava give 40-50% to KDH even in parliamentary elections when they get their usual 4-5% nationally.

The regions are divided into 79 districts. They're less important than they used to be: in 2013, their administration was sort-of-not-really merged with the regions and districts in some areas have územné obvody [territorial circuits], neighboring lesser-populated districts from which they took over some responsibilities. Districts are responsible for regulating land use, hunting and fishing, agriculture and forest management, cadastral documentation, civil defense and emergency management. They each have a two-letter abbreviation used on car license plates and as a common shorthand to refer to the district capital or the general area.

The district map was also drawn by Mečiar and it's somehow even worse than the regional one. Some districts are based on old Czechoslovak ones. Some are bits of the former that ended up in a different region after Mečiar's gerrymander. A district is supposed to be a group of municipalities, but Bratislava and Košice are divided into 5 and 4 different districts. And some districts straight-up exist only because of political favouritism: Kysucké Nové Mesto even admits on its website that the district was created on the recommendation of the local branch of HZDS. Not that Mečiar was doing anything new here; in 1940, Ružomberok was made the capital of Tatra County, allegedly because the local HSĽS branch had the most members.

Districts have no elected councils and the chairman of district office (prednosta okresného úradu) is appointed by the cabinet on advice from the Minister of Interior. It isn't a very political position these days, but in the 1990s, some of Mečiar's appointees turned their districts into little fiefdoms and more than once colluded with the local mafia clans. The most infamous case is Vladimír Bachleda, a very influential figure within HZDS and chairman of the Poprad district office. Thanks to his friendship with Mečiar, he er... acquired a majority stake in Tatravagónka Poprad, a local railcar manufacturer. In 1997, he got into a drawn-out dispute with Bratislava mafia boss Peter Steinhübel. Bachleda thought that his political influence would protect him and misinterpreted Steinhübel's remark to "get him down" as a threat to remove him from the district chairmanship. In May 1997, Bachleda was kidnapped, forced to sign over the factory to Steinhübel and murdered.

Just for comparison, Slovakia has a smaller area than New Brunswick and population comparable to the Boston metro. So why in the everloving fxck does it need 2890 municipalities?

The answer is, of course, lokálpatriotizmus, "local patriotism" (a term that really needs to exist in English). Obviously, Slovakia isn't the only country where people are a little too proud of their patch of land, but still... every town and village is legally required to have a coat of arms, a municipal flag and a seal, many have their own village anthem and organize village fairs. It's actually really charming, and also an adminstrative nightmare.

Anyway, the 2890 municipalities* are divided into
— 2746 obce, ordinary municipalities. I'll call them villages for clarity and because that's what they are.
— 141 mestá, towns or cities. A village can get elevated to a mesto if it has a population of at least 5000 and fulfills some arbitrary criteria. Similarly to UK's city status, the only difference is that the mayor gets to call himself primátor instead of starosta, but being a mesto is a matter of prestige.
— 3 vojenské obvody, former municipalities turned into military bases during the Cold War.

The full list of municipalities is here. As a historical legacy, nearly all also have a Hungarian name and quite a lot a German one as well. Not included are the 17 boroughs of Bratislava and 22 boroughs of Košice (a city of 240,000 people ffs), each with their own mayor and local council. Also not included are 1283 mestské časti [city parts] and miestne časti [local parts], usually formerly independent villages incorporated into the municipality that have no administration of their own but are still marked on place name signs, addresses etc.

Municipalities can merge voluntarily, but the last time it happened under a democratic government was basically never. The government can force a municipality to merge only if it fails to elect a mayor and city council in two consecutive municipal elections. This has only ever applied to one municipality, but nothing seems to have come out of it.

Municipalities are in charge of issuing VZN (bylaws), the municipal police force, managing primary schools and kindergartens (incl. appointing the headmaster), trash collection, parks, construction permits, the civil register, operating the local House of Culture, cleaning up snow, historical landmarks and cemeteries.

All in all, 2904 mayors and 20,646 councillors will be elected. People do actually care about local politics and turnout is fairly decent, usually around 40-50% (49% in 2018), not far below parliamentary elections. Mayors are elected by straight FPTP, councillors by block voting in one or more electoral districts. The same system is used for the boroughs of Bratislava and Košice.

In 2018, Smer lost about a third of its councillors and independents made big gains. 6 of 8 regional capitals went to opposition candidates or opposition-aligned indies: Matúš Vallo (PS) in Bratislava, Jaroslav Polaček (SaS) in Košice, Andrea Turčanová (KDH) in Prešov, über-hipster Peter Bročka in Trnava, Peter Fiabáne in Žilina and Marek Hattas in Nitra. Trenčín and Banská Bystrica were won by Smer-aligned independents.

As in the regional elections, there is a rough outline of partisan politics that bears similarities to what happens on the national level, but it really isn't about that. Outside the few big cities (and by Slovak standards, 30,000 is a big city), independents dominate and party labels are best ignored. Politicians who do run under a party enter and leave as they please, irrelevant cranks that can't get half a percent nationally randomly win and there are some really wild joint candidacies: the current Minister of Environment was elected to Bratislava city council under the label "SaS, OĽaNO, KDH, SME RODINA, OKS, NOVA, Zmena zdola, DÚ", a ticket that does actually make sense but probaly has more member parties than elected councillors.

_{* Out of curiosity, this works out to 1900 or so people per municipality. The number of Slovak municipalities is comparable to the number of Portuguese freguesias, Romanian communes or Polish gminas, countries with twice, four times and eight times the population. Our brother Czechia comes close with around 2000 people per municipality. Only Metropolitan France is ahead/behind us, with some 1800 people per commune.}

[Estrella]

the ride never ends

"The biggest problem of our coalition is called Igor Matovič" said SaS leader Richard Sulík on Wednesday after a meeting of the party council. The 13-member body, together with SaS ministers and MPs decided that if the OĽaNO leader doesn't leave the government by the end of summer, in September all four SaS ministers will resign.

Giving themselves quite a bit of time I see.

Yeah, about that. Matovič hasn't left (duh), and everybody is assuming that in a few days, the SaS ministers will actually walk the walk and resign. What happens then is anyone's guess.

[Estrella]

Well, just hours later, Sulík has resigned as Minister of Economy. The other three SaS ministers haven't done so yet, but Heger is allegedly trying to convince Foreign Minister Korčok to stay. Sulík gave Matovič, the Minister of Finance, until Monday to resign, otherwise the remaining SaS ministers will go. Matovič then responded with a counter-proposal, stating he will resign if Sulík agrees with ten (super vague) points:

- €200 per child
- A budget for 2023
- A constitutional amendment on budgetary responsibility
- A stable retirement system
- Financial discipline
- New sources of income for the state
- Freezing electricity prices for households
- Cheaper gas for households
- €250 million gas and electricity allowance for households
- €150 million for retirees

The President took up Sulík's resignation and gave a very "exasperated mom" speech:

For two months, Slovakia has been waiting for the governing coalition to stop dealing with themselves and start dealing with the country's problems. And on the last day of the ultimatum, a new ultimatum came from the other side. Did the Minister of Finance really have to wait with this step until the last day? Instead of a solution, we have a continuation of a neverending soap opera that nobody is interested in. You can not and should not govern like this.

[Estrella]

After a weekend of intense negotiations, Matovič decided he's going to stay in the cabinet after all. Hence SaS will leave tomorrow. In two and a half years, the government managed to fall from a two-thirds constitutional majority to a bare minority *slow clap*

The parliament now looks like this (going by actual party affiliations, not caucus membership):

Government 73
OĽaNO 40
Sme rodina 20 [including 3 defectors from OĽaNO]
Za ľudí 4
Christian Union 4 [Christian right, caucusing with OĽaNO]
NOVA 2 [conservative, caucusing with OĽaNO]
Zmena zdola 1 [conservative, caucusing with OĽaNO]
Independents 2 [ex-OĽaNO]

Opposition 77
Smer 27
SaS 19
Hlas 11
ĽSNS 7
Republika 5 [nationalist, ex-ĽSNS]
Život 3 [Christian right, ex-ĽSNS]
OKS 1 [conservative, caucusing with SaS]
Progressive Slovakia 1 [ex-Za ľudí]
Spolu 1 [ex-Za ľudí]
Independents 2 [ex-OĽaNO, ex-ĽSNS]

If I'm counting correctly, 28 MPs (18% of the parliament) have changed their party affiliation since the last election

[Mike88]

So, snap elections after the budget or during 2023 are almost inevitable, right?

[Estrella]

So, snap elections after the budget or during 2023 are almost inevitable, right?

... maybe?

In theory the government could carry on with support from Republika/ĽSNS or convince SaS to abstain on this or that vote, but the former would be extremely controversial even among many OĽaNO MPs and the latter would require Matovič to gtfo. What happens now depends on Boris Kollár. He mused about snap elections during the summer and now he might actually decide to pull the trigger. He's a shameless opportunist who presumably wants to get out of an unpopular government, take the credit for collapsing it and then get into a more ideologically compatible coalition with Smer and Hlas. But there's still a possibility he might be convinced to stay if he gets what he wants - earlier today he talked about a cap on electricity bills and possible nationalisations of power plants.

An important thing to note is that calling a snap election is a complicated matter and in practice, you need a two-thirds majority for it. The Constitution defines the term of the legislature as four years, period. There are very strict limits on the circumstances when an early election can take place:

- if the National Council of the Slovak Republic, within a period of six months from the nomination of a Government of the Slovak Republic, has not passed its Programme Proclamation
- if the National Council of the Slovak Republic has not passed within three months of the formation of a Government a draft law with which the Government has combined a vote of confidence
- if the National Council of the Slovak Republic has not managed to hold a session for longer than three months although its sitting has not been adjourned and it has during this time been repeatedly called for a meeting
- if a session of the National Council of the Slovak Republic has been adjourned for a longer time than is allowed by the Constitution.

The number of times any of these provisions were used is zero. All three snap elections (1994, 2006, 2012) were called by means of a constitutional amendment to get around the four year limit. Last time it looked like this:

Article 1
(1) The term of the National Council of Slovak Republic elected in 2010 ends with the day of elections to the National Council.
(2) Elections to the National Council will take place on 10 March 2012.
Article 2
This constitutional act comes in effect on the day of proclamation.

As it happens, last week Sme rodina proposed a constitutional amendment to allow the parliament to simply vote for a snap election with a simple majority and to allow a petition to force a referendum about a snap election, but that might just be posturing. If they really want an election, they don't need it: all of opposition + Sme rodina gets you 97 votes, a narrow two-thirds majority.

[Estrella]

The rump coalition is showing no signs of agreeing who will get the cabinet posts vacated by SaS, and the president is losing her patience: "If I do not get the names by the beginning of next week, I will consider deciding by myself which members of the cabinet will be tasked with managing these positions."

As for the polls, the most recent one, finished just as the coalition started breaking apart:
Smer 19% (kind of an outlier, they're usually around 14-17)
Hlas 17%
SaS 16%
PS 7%
Sme rodina 7%
Republika 7%
OĽaNO 6%
KDH 5%
Szövetség/Aliancia 5%
SNS and Dobrá voľba below threshold as usual (I'm surprised the latter still exists), Za ľudí not even registering, though they get around 2% when they are actually polled.

... which means that the incumbent almost-majority government would get a grand total of 13% of the vote.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Estella, please inform us about that girl's fight.