Two votes fail for coalition

TWO key votes for the ruling partners of Smer – the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and Slovak National Party (SNS) – failed to pass yesterday.

The parliament, in which a majority of MPs belong to the ruling coalition, failed to elect a new chairman of the National Memory Institute (ÚPN) although it was expected that the SNS candidate, lawyer Adrián Kucek, would succeed.

In the votes on 15 candidates for the post of Constitutional Court, current Justice Minister Štefan Harabin, who was nominated by HZDS leader Vladimír Mečiar, also did not receive enough votes to be elected.

Both votes were held in the form of secret ballots and both will be repeated today.

In the new vote on the ÚPN director, Kucek will face the second most successful candidate from the first round, Ladislav Bukvszký, who is currently working as the head of the ÚPN archives.

In yesterday’s elections for Constitutional Court judges, eight of the planned 15 candidates were elected. The remaining seven should be elected today. Those elected include current Constitutional Court justices Ľudmila Gajdošíková and Lajos Mészáros, Supreme Court justices Peter Brňák and Sergej Kohut, current Constitutional Court advisors Alexander Fuchs and Ladislav Orosz, lawyer Marianna Mochnáčová and university teacher Peter Vojčík.

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