PS politician Tomáš Hellebrandt. (source: SME)
When opposition MP Tomáš Hellebrandt (Progresívne Slovensko) announced earlier this week that he has decided to resign, he cited a personal reason. But this wasn’t self-explanatory enough for his rival, PM and Smer party leader Robert Fico.
The premier was the first to hint at a more specific reason for the now former MP’s decision.
“Progresívne Slovensko should explain whether Hellebrandt’s decision is linked to an incident in the hospital for which the facility has filed a criminal complaint against him,” Fico wrote on Facebook on February 7.
How Fico managed to obtain information about Hellebrandt’s health, and about the criminal complaint against him (since the police didn’t publish this information), is not known.
“We learned this from Fico’s public post, which is very disturbing to me - where did the prime minister get such information?” asked opposition leader and PS chair Michal Šimečka.
Hellebrandt, who is openly gay, posted on social media on Thursday, February 8, that he failed to inform the Žilina hospital about an infectious disease that he has lived with for the past 15 years. He told Šimečka about his mistake before.
“I didn’t share this for fear that this personal information would become public and become the means of power struggle. It seems I was right,” he wrote.
