As not enough MPs presented themselves for voting in Parliament on Tuesday morning, Parliament was unable to vote on the no-confidence motions in Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova (SNS nominee) and Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer-SD).
Parliamentary Vice-chair entrusted with the powers of House chair Peter Ziga (Hlas-SD), therefore, suspended the session until 2 p.m., when the House should try to vote again. Attempts to vote at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. were also unsuccessful as parliament was still inquorate.
On Tuesday morning Independents Rudolf Huliak, Pavol Luptak and Ivan Sevcik announced that they wouldn't participate on Tuesday and Wednesday (October 30) unless the governing parties invite them to a roundtable and sign the memorandum on cooperation.
According to Huliak, SNS leader Andrej Danko and Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (an SNS nominee) are escalating the conflict between SNS and the National Coalition, as SNS nominees have started eliminating experts nominated by the National Coalition from state posts. The most recent example of this was the dismissal of head of the State Nature Protection Office Stefan Kysel. [Huliak, Luptak and Sevcik, all members of the National Coalition party, were elected to Parliament on the slate of SNS - ed. note.]
Minister Taraba pointed out that Huliak has admitted that Kysel didn't respect EU directives, which is why he had to dismiss him.
The three Independent MPs claimed that they will support the governing coalition and don't intend to support the opposition's no-confidence motions in Justice Minister Boris Susko and Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova.
After the first unsuccessful attempt by Parliament to hold a vote, the opposition claimed that the coalition is disintegrating and is unable to govern due to lacking a majority. The coalition has blamed the opposition's boycott of the vote for the gridlock, maintaining that it lacks a majority only due to a short-term stay in hospital for MP Jan Blchac (Hlas-SD).
Tuesday's chaos has revealed that the governing coalition has lost its majority in Parliament and with it the legitimacy to govern, so it should resign, MP Gabor Grendel (Slovakia-Za ludi-KU) declared on Tuesday.
"On these two days while Rudolf Huliak is on strike, the whole of Slovakia and every single Slovak can ask, and we are asking, what rewards Rudolf Huliak will demand in exchange for voting in concert with the governing coalition," said Slovakia-Za ludi-KU caucus head Michal Sipos.
Internal conflicts within the coalition have already carried over into Parliament and paralyzed it, as the coalition is unable to pass laws, head of opposition PS caucus Martin Dubeci declared on Tuesday.
"Slowly but surely, we are witnessing the disintegration of the governing coalition, which, for the first time, has proved itself unable to pass laws. This is the outcome of extremely bad relations within the coalition and even more toxic relations inside SNS." Dubeci told TASR.
In PS's view, instead of passing legislation and addressing the problems of Slovakia, the public will once again be treated to another soap opera episode featuring "emotionally disgruntled men".
We're witnessing a coalition crisis, said head of the opposition KDH Milan Majersky on Tuesday after Parliament failed to meet the quorum for voting.
"Let's remember the [televised] debates on Saturday, how government representatives, coalition MPs, sanctimoniously claimed that the coalition was organised and had enough votes to pass bills. Three days have passed, and today we are witnessing that they can't even meet the quorum for voting on items on the agenda," said Majersky.
The coalition has fallen apart as of today, as well as the rule of the fourth government of [Premier Robert] Fico. You can see for yourself that they are unable to bring the laws that they call 'the right ones' to the people, as they don't have a majority in Parliament. They currently have only 75 MPs," SaS leader Branislav Groehling told journalists on Tuesday.
Source: TASR
