A parliamentary vote to select the next head of the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) will be postponed until the last parliament session of this year, in November, according to Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) caucus chairman Jozef Viskupič, who was speaking after a meeting of a parliamentary all-party panel on Wednesday, October 10.
"This item wasn't included in the next parliamentary session agenda, as there is supposedly no agreement among the opposition parties in terms of a joint opposition candidate," Viskupič said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. He added that the session slated to begin next week is already loaded up with numerous items.
Jana Laššáková, head of the parliamentary caucus for Smer, the ruling party, claimed that the opposition had not reached an agreement on a candidate for the job. "The chairs of all the caucuses –including the opposition parties – were [at the panel meeting] and nobody came forth to say 'yes, this is our candidate'," Laššáková said. She added that Smer wants to be sure that the candidate nominated by the opposition parties will have the support of the entire opposition.
Two attempts, in July and September, to vote in Kamil Krnáč – who was nominated by Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and backed by all the opposition parties – failed after Smer MPs withheld their support despite an earlier promise by Prime Minister Robert Fico to back the opposition’s choice. Following the two failed attempts, SaS announced on October 2 that it would propose Vladimír Klimeš, who ran at number 24 on SaS' slate in the March general election and is a former member of the management board of gas utility SPP, as the new joint opposition candidate to lead the NKÚ.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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