The leader of the strongest opposition party, Smer, and past prime minister Robert Fico presented a shadow cabinet on January 19 with the aim to monitor and respond to the government led by Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, the TASR newswire reported.
"Most of all, I expect the shadow cabinet to be monitoring the government's agenda, opposing it, and coming up with alternative solutions," Fico told TASR, saying that among the topics that will be in focus in the near future are what he called pointless price hikes, amendments to the Labour Code, motorway construction, and Slovak-Hungarian relations.
The list of the announced shadow ministers is: Robert Kaliňák (interior), Marek Maďarič (culture), Ján Počiatek (finance), Robert Madej (justice), Stanislav Becík (agriculture), Ľubomír Jahnátek (economy), Jaroslav Baška (defence), Dušan Čaplovič (education), Ľubomír Vážny (transport), Richard Raši (health), Zuzana Zvolenská (labour), Oľga Algayerová (foreign affairs). The shadow counterparts to vice-premiers are Oľga Nachtmannová (human rights and minorities) and Peter Kažimír (social affairs and economy).
Another member of the shadow executive is Vladimír Faic who will be in charge the shadow cabinet's programme and strategies. Except for Madej, Zvolenská and Algayerová, all members of the shadow government were ministers in the past government led by Fico from 2006 to 2010.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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