Sipos: 'Slovakia's Party Aim to Be Indispensable to Any 2027 Government

Bratislava, 26 August (TASR) - The political goal of the 'Slovakia' party is to achieve such a result in the 2027 parliamentary election so as to make it impossible for the current opposition to form any government without it, 'Slovakia' parliamentary caucus chair Marian Sipos told TASR TV on Wednesday. He added that Progressive Slovakia (PS), Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and possibly other opposition parties have spoken of their intention to form a government after the election without Igor Matovic's party. However, local election experience shows that as the election date approaches, their willingness to cooperate with the 'Slovakia' party increases. "All the talk about not wanting to cooperate with our party and that it's impossible to work with us is essentially melting away in these local elections," Sipos claimed. He added that in the local and regional elections, the party has decided to support candidates from democratic opposition parties in the regions who have a realistic chance of being elected. "Our top candidate is our regional governor of the Zilina region, Erika Jurinova," Sipos said. He confirmed that the party still has a proposal before Parliament, submitted during the first half of the current parliamentary term, aimed at amending the Constitution so that a parliamentary term could be shortened by referendum. "The bill has not yet been brought forward for debate because government MPs systematically push our legislative proposals to the end of the parliamentary session," he said. According to Sipos, the purpose of submitting the proposal was to test whether the coalition parties were genuinely seeking to amend the Constitution to allow a parliamentary term to be shortened by referendum. Sipos does not consider the coalition's current proposals for such a constitutional change genuine. "Since government politicians come forward with such a bill in an election year, it's evident that they do not mean it sincerely and it is clear that it will not happen [the referendum-ed.note] during their term in office," he explained. In Sipos's view, the current coalition merely wants to lay the groundwork to enable it to destabilise another government after the 2027 parliamentary election. In recent days police have informed that, as part of Operation Invoice conducted by the Office for the Fight Against Organised Crime, charges have been brought against A. K. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons] over the fraudulent disbursement of funds intended to operate COVID-19 mobile testing sites, known as MOMs, during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the accused, an employee of the Health Ministry, had allegedly caused almost €1.8 million in damage to the ministry. "Let the police investigate it and let it be established how it happened. I have absolutely no problem with that," Sipos said. He pointed out that the suspicions relate to a period when Marek Krajci (2020-21) was no longer health minister but Vladimir Lengvarsky was. "Eduard Heger was prime minister at the time," Sipos added, noting that Heger is now a representative of the Democrats party. mf