It was high time for PM Robert Fico to call on the Environment Minister Ján Chrbet from the Slovak National Party (SNS) to resign, political scientist Miroslav Kusý told the SITA newswire. In his opinion, the dismissal of Chrbet will not threaten the coalition because the coalition is based on other grounds: power distribution. According to Kusý, there may be a bit of a scandal but the coalition will survive that.
The controversial sale of the emission quotas is compromising not only for SNS but also for the whole government and consequently the prime minister and his Smer party, SITA reported political scientist Grigorij Mesežnikov as saying. Citizen’s preferences for the coalition are falling while the opposition has improved its standing and that was also a reason for Fico to dismiss Chrbet, Mesežnikov said, adding that this is already the second minister from the SNS to be sacked after a scandal which involved the ministry and companies backed by SNS.
“It was politically visible that SNS stands in the background,” Mesežnikov said as quoted by SITA. “These were the two cases in the media but there’ve been more transactions like this.”
He also doesn’t think that Chrbet’s dismissal might threaten the government.
“SNS is very dissatisfied now, as they are losing interesting assets. They will express their dissatisfaction, but they will not put their position in the government at risk. It won’t help the relations, […], but the criticism will be formulated so that it doesn’t threaten the coalition. The government will definitely not fall now just because of Chrbet’s dismissal,” Mesežnikov told SITA. SITA
Compiled by Michaela Stanková from press reports
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