Speaker of Parliament Boris Kollar and his deputy Peter Pcolinsky of Sme Rodina share a laugh after the parliament approved the end of its term on September 30. (source: Sme - Marko Erd)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. It’s been an eventful week on many fronts. The election campaign is now on. Foreign diplomats voice some unusually sharp comments after meeting Fico. Former “best interior minister” charged with corruption, again. Communist secret police files are a political topic, again. And a new nuclear reactor is now supplying the grid.
Amid the chaos that has characterised this parliament from the very start of its term, MPs have now voted to shorten it, and Speaker Boris Kollár has pledged to set a general election for the last day of September. That’s only five months before the current four-year term was due to end anyway, which makes it a little hard to describe the election as “early”.
It also means that Slovakia is in for an eight-month-long election campaign, and that the government of Eduard Heger, formally ousted last December, will continue running the country until well into October or November, depending on how long it takes for a government to be formed after the election results are in. If you are wondering why the ruling politicians decided to insert such a long interval between the decision to hold a general election and the actual election day, you are not alone: they have provided no satisfactory answer (Sme daily commentator Peter Tkačenko called the decision “indefensible”).
