On Monday the Slovak National Party revoked the Coalition agreement. Its leader and the incumbent parliamentary chairman Andrej Danko claims an absolute need to reset the rules and adjust relations within the governing coalition. Among other reasons he cited the need to set completely new priorities that would be reflected within the process of drafting a new budget in order to restore mutual trust between the coalition partners, as well as the public's trust in the coalition.
The leaders of the three coalition parties, Smer-SD, the Slovak National Party and Most-Híd, met in Bratislava on Tuesday morning. With Prime Minister Robert Fico calling journalists pathetic, the ruling coalition session finished with no specific explanation of the reason why one of its representatives called for revoking their mutual agreement.
The Most-Híd leader Béla Bugár gave a brief statement to the media. "There is no alternative to this coalition," he said adding that all three partners agreed on this fact. Their next meeting should be held this Friday.
Similarly to politicians, political commentators are also vague in their analyses.
Speaking at the public Radio Slovensko, Dag Danis expressed his opinion that the decision of the Slovak National Party's leader Andrej Danko has no relevant immediate effect: "I read the whole situation in a way that there is no big reason to panic because not much has changed."
Dag Danis and his colleague Marian Lesko agree that this move does not mean the collapse of the government and it is up to the coalition partners to agree on the next steps. The current events can take three different paths, with early elections being the least likely one. Commentator Dag Danis again: "The first one is some amendment to the Coalition agreement. The second one is a coalition crisis and the third, most extreme one, would be early elections."
For both commentators, it is difficult to analyse the reasons behind Danko's political decision. Nevertheless, Andrej Danko and Prime Minister Robert Fico have already had a few conflicts in the past. Moreover, the last few weeks have been influenced by the corruption scandal at the Education Ministry which is controlled by Danko's nominee. As the commentator Marian Lesko concludes: "I think that something must have happened which the public does not yet know about."
Nevertheless, Danko's decision did not surprise only his coalition partners, but also some politicians from inside his Slovak National Party.
