Former Prime Ministers Peter Pellegrini and Robert Fico, both of whom belong to Hlas-SD and Smer-SD respectively, are leading the polls ahead of autumn elections, and as both parties have been drifting away from EU policy, the election results could put Slovakia’s EU future at stake.
The parliament decided on Tuesday to hold early elections on 30 September. Out of 150 National Council members, 90 votes were needed to approve early elections, with 92 voting in favour. The opposition, including social democratic and extremist parties, demanded that the election date be set for May or June.
The political chaos started in the summer and culminated in December when the government lost a no-confidence vote initiated by the former coalition party, Freedom and Solidarity, in December.
By approving the date of the early elections, the parliament, at the last minute fulfilled the request of President Zuzana Čaputová to resolve this issue by the end of January. Otherwise, Caputova was ready to appoint a caretaker government for the remaining time until the elections.
The previous government led by Prime Minister Eduard Heger, which emerged from the elections in 2020, was pro-European and pro-Atlantic, and, since the start of Russian aggression, donated arms to the Ukrainian armed forces.
Smer-SD, which in the past has been involved in multiple corruption scandals, used to be the main governing party but recently began to drift from the EU on policy and has heavily criticised sanctions against Russia.
To form the next government, the social democrats would, however, still need the support of the far-right and anti-EU party Republika which split from the other extremist party ĽSNS which previously demanded the withdrawal of Slovakia from the European Union.
The third strongest party in the polls is the liberal pro-European party Progressive Slovakia. Other, especially conservative pro-European forces, are very fragmented due to the personal disputes of their leaders. Their success in the parliamentary elections will depend on their ability to integrate into larger pre-election coalitions.
(Marián Koreň | EURACTIV.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
