Fico: Smer-SD Presidential Candidate Chosen, But Kept Secret for Now

Bratislava, December 6 (TASR) - Senior coalition Smer-SD party chairman Robert Fico said in a TV Pravda discussion that his party has already selected its presidential candidate but it won't release his or her name at the moment. Fico added that the party will probably uncover the name of its candidate for the 2019 presidential election only by the end of the deadline for submitting the presidential nominations in early February. The Smer-SD chair went on to say that the reason why the party is keeping the name of its presidential candidate secret is to spare him or her "harsh attacks from all sides" after making the name public. At the same time Fico didn't rule out that the name of the candidate could be released at Smer-SD annual Congress scheduled to take place in Trencin on Saturday (December 8). "I can't rule it out, but it has to be done after the person agrees with it. So far I have no agreement in this regard for Saturday," he said. Regarding the resignation of Miroslav Lajcak (a Smer-SD nominee) as the foreign and European affairs minister, Fico said that he is convinced that Lajcak wants to carry on in the post and he hopes that Lajcak will soon confirm this to the public as well. Fico admitted that in terms of the Constitution the minister has made the situation rather complicated as he tendered his resignation himself. "Even if it is unusual but we can imagine that he will clearly say that the resignation was a way to express disagreement with the parliamentary resolution to reject the UN Migration Compact and that he wants to continue working as the minister of Slovak diplomacy," said Fico, adding that President Andrej Kiska has no powers in this issue, so any of his attempts to address this situation are irrelevant. tz/mcs