Opposition Claims Coalition Has Lost Majority, Urges Snap Election

Bratislava, 3 November (TASR) - The opposition claims that the governing coalition no longer has enough MPs in Parliament and lacks a parliamentary majority, thus necessitating a snap election, said representatives of opposition parties in response to Tuesday's announcement by Independent MP Roman Malatinec, who is leaving the extra-parliamentary Rural Party headed by Tourism and Sports Minister Rudolf Huliak (Independent) and joining a new party set up by former environment minister Tomas Taraba. "With MP Malatinec joining Taraba's party, [Prime Minister] Robert Fico's (Smer-SD) government has definitively lost its majority in Parliament, and now Slovakia has a choice. There are two options - either we go on like this until the election, with this governing coalition lingering without a majority, which would mean disgusting scenes in Parliament, with blackmail flying all around [...] or all of us politicians here can be honest with each other and admit that this situation necessitates an early election as the only way out," said Progressive Slovakia (PS) leader Michal Simecka. According to him, the governing coalition has acknowledged the loss of its majority as it's postponed voting in Parliament until next week. The Christian Democrats (KDH) also called on the coalition to step down, criticising the cancellation of this week's voting in Parliament. "Chaos, confusion, disorder. There's no other way to describe it. If they don't have a majority and can't guarantee the votes, they should walk away from it as soon as possible. We ought to be passing laws that benefit people. Instead, they're trying to work out whether they can muster up 76 votes," said KDH chairman Milan Majersky. The Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party also claims that the coalition has lost its majority. "Traitor Malatinec has betrayed traitor Huliak and defected to traitor Taraba. The coalition now officially has only 75 votes," SaS stated on social media. Opposition 'Slovakia' party leader Igor Matovic described the current coalition as a hodge-podge. "Fico criticised hodge-podge governments so much that he ended up becoming the king of them. And now there's this little business window opening up [...] If Taraba maintains his independence, supports harmless proposals but refuses to back their dirty tricks, we'll know that he hasn't been bought. But if he votes in favour of everything after this little business window, then we'll know that he has been bought," stated Matovic. Earlier on Tuesday, Malatinec announced his departure from the Rural Party, explaining that he wanted to start from scratch and build a political project along with Taraba. He denied that his decision was made in haste, arguing that he had been considering his political views and the goals that he wants to achieve in Parliament for a long time. Malatinec also declared his intention to support bills that make sense. Huliak said that he was surprised by the news, but he expressed confidence that the coalition isn't losing an MP. House Vice-chair Tibor Gaspar (Smer-SD) announced that talks will take place as to whether the coalition continues to hold the support of 76 MPs. jrg/df