Mikuláš Dzurinda (source: SITA)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. The Blue Coalition was Dzurinda’s project, but now it’s ditched him and extended a hand to Heger. Attacks on journalists are in the spotlight, the health minister quits, and a court decides that spying for Russia needn’t cost you jail time.
The political comeback of former prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda has turned out to be shorter than anyone expected – himself included. But despite the latest reversal, Dzurinda is still mulling another try.
The turmoil in the Blue Coalition, as the Spolu (Together) party was recently renamed at Dzurinda’s behest, provided the main news in Slovak politics last week, despite the fact that it continues to be a marginal force, according to opinion polls – in which, so far, it has recorded only 1-2 percent voter support.
By the time you read this, it should be all but certain that there will be no more attempts to bring forward Slovakia’s election general to earlier than the end of September. Due to legal deadlines, the election cannot now be announced any earlier than the start of July, and there is an overwhelming consensus that elections should not be held during the summer holidays.
Slovak citizens, therefore, will still have to wait almost seven months before they can take to the polling booths. Even so, some politicians are hard at work campaigning, while others have yet to reveal who will be running with whom, nor whom they might pair up with in light of the latest popularity contest. This might all sound rather like high-school gossip, but it is the level to which Slovak politics has been reduced for the moment.
