THE RULING Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) party, whose nominee heads the National Security Bureau, has rejected an attempt by its coalition partners to nominate one of their candidates to the leadership of the Bureau.
Smer MP Ján Richter had proposed a revision of the Act on the Protection of Classified Information to create a new deputy-director post at the Bureau that would be held by Smer, but the HZDS refused to support the change in voting in parliament on December 13.
According to Richter, the HZDS, Smer, and the Slovak National Party (SNS) had earlier agreed to support the revision.
"We consulted the issue with our partners at the meeting of the Coalition Council [senior government body]," he said.
HZDS MP Ján Kovarčík denied that any agreement had been reached on the matter. However, Smer and the SNS said that if the HZDS had a problem with this part of the proposed revision, it should have demanded a separate vote on the issue, rather than rejecting the amendment as a whole.
