The Eduard Heger faces a no-confidence vote in parliament on December 15, 2022. (source: TASR - Jaroslav Novák)
The previous breaking-news story on the fall of the Slovak government has been replaced with a longer and updated version of the story.
Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger’s minority government fell on Thursday evening after narrowly losing a no-confidence vote in parliament. It ends the short term of a prime minister who has been praised for his performance on the international stage but criticised at home for being a weak head of government.
After a parliamentary session on Thursday that was subject to repeated interruptions, 78 lawmakers out of the 102 present in the chamber supported the no-confidence vote, which had been initiated by two opposition parties, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Hlas. The vote, which required the support of 76 of the 150 MPs to succeed, was originally scheduled to happen on Tuesday.
“It is the best gift for the Slovak people ahead of Christmas,” Hlas leader and former prime minister Peter Pellegrini wrote on social media.
“Finally,” said SaS leader Richard Sulík after the vote. Sulík was a member of Heger’s government until September this year.
Shortly before the vote finally took place on Thursday evening, MPs for the largest party in the governing coalition, Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO), walked out of the debating chamber in protest.
