The opposition Smer party is planning to initiate an extraordinary session of parliament to deal with the election of a new general prosecutor, party leader Robert Fico told reporters on Monday, January 3, adding that Smer will submit the proposal after January 15, the TASR newswire reported.
The term of the current General Prosecutor, Dobroslav Trnka, expires in early February. According to Fico, it is "impossible" for parliament to let Trnka’s term expire and wait for the vote on his replacement. He also said that Smer MPs will propose one more candidate for the post apart from Trnka, who has been the opposition's candidate to date, and TASR reported that this will be the coalition's nominee, Jozef Čentéš. The Smer chairman stated "there's no reason to wait" and that the next attempt to elect a new prosecutor should take place before the end of January and under the current rules – in a secret ballot.
Prime Minister Iveta Radičová and leaders of four governing coalition parties said in a joint statement on January 3 that regarding the planned changes to the mandate of prosecutor general and the changed voting method, they will stick to what they agreed on earlier.
Radičová, together with Mikuláš Dzurinda (SDKÚ), Richard Sulík (SaS), Ján Figeľ (KDH) and Béla Bugár (Most-Híd), said they view Fico's initiative to be a "distraction plan", an attempt to turn the government away from solving "acute problems of citizens" and to disrupt the "unity of the ruling coalition".
"We see the activity of the Smer chairman as an inefficient waste of time, money and energy that we want to devote to urgent solutions," according to the coalition’s statement, a quoted by TASR.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
