President Peter Pellegrini. (source: TASR)
After Slovak National Party (SNS) chair Andrej Danko criticised Hlas ministers at the end of September, President Peter Pellegrini, former Hlas chair, went on to say that a "politician with such a low trust cannot set the tone of the Slovak politics".
Danko then opined that the president delegated himself to the level of a Hlas spokesperson.
Pellegrini gave up the post of Hlas chair and ended his party membership on June 1 shortly before the inauguration on June 15. The party is now led by Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok. However, a new post of a "founding chair" made it into the party's statutes.
Until now, it was not clear what Pellegrini's position as the founding chair of Hlas allows - whether it is symbolic or actually holds power.
Not a symbolic post
Now that the full statutes are available on the Hlas website, it is clear that Pellegrini's post is not merely symbolic, and the party still must hear him out should he ask for it.
Neither the constitution nor the laws prohibit a president from being a member of a political party. However, all previous presidents renounced their party memberships and tried to be non-partisan. Pellegrini is no exception.
Still, it follows from the statutes that there is some connection.
Since the post of the founding chair is performed by the person who was the first to be elected to be the party chair after the founding of the party, it applies only to Pellegrini. In addition, the statutes read that the founding chair is an extraordinary post within the party, awarded to a person with special merits when it comes to its development.
