Robert Fico and Andrej Danko in parliament (source: SME - Jozef Jakubčo)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. The misfiring governing coalition finally wrapped up parliament's last regular session of the year. Robert Fico returned from Brazil. The threat that hospital doctors will walk out on their patients in a few weeks remains.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
Fico relies on a shaky coalition
The finale that the governing coalition led by Robert Fico had planned for the December session of parliament did not happen.
Towards the end of the session, in the middle of last week, MPs were scheduled to debate a government resolution performatively condemning what it characterised as the "spreading of hate" and "support for the radicalisation of society" at an opposition protest on November 17.
Leaving aside the hypocrisy and cynicism of such a move – the central claim is nonsense, and in the end the vote never happened – the failed attempt at passing a resolution was one of a handful of things that the coalition was forced to postpone until February.
Despite Robert Fico getting all worked up and accusing the media of "lying" simply by reporting on the obvious difficulties that his coalition is experiencing just gathering a majority, or even a quorum, ever since a threesome of Slovak National Party (SNS) renegades started blocking some proposals, the fact is that the coalition is not getting done the things it wants.
To put it another way, Fico now finds himself wrangling the most unstable coalition he has ever led.
