The pressure for a Cabinet reshuffle, exerted by two governing parties, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and For the People, does not automatically mean that Igor Matovič (OLaNO) has lost the chance to hold on to the Prime Minister's post, analyst Juraj Hrabko has told TASR press agency. The current crisis broke out after two junior members of the Governing coalition began voicing publicly their disagreements with the way PM Matovič is managing the current situation, taking decisions without respecting the opinions of coalition partners and often ignoring experts' advice too.
"It depends on the talks between coalition partners. The game of Black Peter begins here, which is the worst of political games. Every normal politician avoids this," said Hrabko. According to him, of the three basic possible scenarios for resolving the government crisis, the least painful in the short term would be one that would bring about the replacement of some ministers, the preservation of the four-strong coalition, including Igor Matovič in the post of premier. The second possibility is that the Prime Minister will have to leave either via a vote of no-confidence in him in Parliament, or by his own resignation. "In both cases, President Zuzana Čaputová would become a very strong player in the political environment," he added.
According to political scientist Darina Malová, the role of good government is to be able to calm down crises and not provoke them. "Prime Minister Igor Matovič (OĽANO) has become a cause of crises, not only within the governing coalition, but also in society. I don't hold high hopes for a change at the helm of the Government, because it all depends on how Prime Minister Matovič evaluates the situation and he is determined not to resign," said Malová.
However, even the replacement of the Prime Minister does not mean that the Government cannot be faced again with the situation where there will be talk of its disintegration, according to political analyst Juraj Marušiak. "It depends on whether Matovič would agree to such a change. Even so, we know from the recent past that such changes have brought about an internal deterioration of relations within a party. Let us recall the Fico-Pellegrini relationship in the previous Government. And in a party built around the leader's personality, it is possible that such a change would later mean that the coalition would be definitively buried by the split within Matovič's OĽANO, " concluded Marušiak.
