THE CABINET has again failed to approve a new director for the National Security Office (NBÚ) after two of the four ruling partners refused to support former chief investigator Jaroslav Ivor for the job.
The post is currently filled by acting chief Matej Sudor, whose term the cabinet prolonged until the end February.
The Slovak daily Pravda wrote that the Christian Democrats (KDH) expressed their opposition to Ivor's candidacy by suggesting he would most likely not pass security screening after a prepared amendment on the protection of classified information is passed. Ivor went through investigators' training in Moscow under communism. The prepared amendment bans people who received training at specialized communist institutions from accessing classified data.
The Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) also argued that Ivor is not a good candidate because he is perceived to be too close to head of the Slovak Intelligence Service, Ladislav Pittner, who ran the Interior Ministry when Ivor led the investigators.
"The public might perceived it as sensitive that Ivor and Pittner have a close relationship," Pál Csáky, SMK's vice chairman and the country's Deputy PM for integration, told the daily on December 18.
The SMK and the KDH insisted that a new head of the NBÚ must be picked through the unanimous agreement of all ruling parties.
Compiled by Martina Pisárová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
