Eduard Heger (left) and Igor Matovič (right) (source: SITA)
“I will do everything to make sure Slovakia has a government that history books will describe as its best,” Igor Matovič said after President Zuzana Čaputová assigned him to form his cabinet shortly after his election victory.
One year later, coalition partners, public pressure and even the president with her harsh remarks pushed Matovič to step down from the top governmental post. But Matovič is not about to disappear from the public eye: he wants to serve as finance minister under PM Eduard Heger, assigned to form a new cabinet on March 30. Matovič’s nomination has not been confirmed yet, the president has an important say in this matter.
But the swap worked as a solution to the coalition crisis and Slovakia will not see a snap election for now.
The question that remains open, even as follows from the statements that SaS leader Richard Sulík and Za Ľudí leader Veronika Remišová made after the decision about the new cabinet, is the relationship between Eduard Heger and Igor Matovič.
“We have not seen Matovič in the position of a number two yet,” political analyst Tomáš Koziak told The Slovak Spectator. “This will be his first time and we have no idea how he will behave," he noted.
In the government, Heger will be the boss while Matovič will manage his, albeit powerful, Finance Ministry. Outside the realm of the government, Matovič is still the chair of the OĽaNO movement, while Heger is his deputy.
