Slovakia’s sovereignist PM Robert Fico has managed to avert the internal crisis of his coalition government by striking a deal with those MPs who threatened to join the opposition and deny the government a parliamentary majority.
Fico announced the restoration of his government’s majority on Tuesday, March 18th on his Facebook account, following talks between him and three rebel MPs.
Two of the three lawmakers were expelled in January from the social democrat Hlas party—a junior coalition partner of Fico’s left-wing nationalists Smer—for not abiding by the party’s “values,” and for only being interested in “positions of power.” The third MP remained a member of Hlas but refused to cooperate with the government.
On Tuesday, they signed an agreement with Fico. One of them, Samuel Migaľ, will become the new minister for investments and regional development.
The deal means that Smer, together with Hlas and the right-wing nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), once again have 79 MPs, a razor-thin majority in the 150-seat parliament.
A few weeks ago, the prime minister also had to convince three defectors from the SNS party to stay with the government. As a token of goodwill, one of them, Rudolf Huliak, was appointed the minister of sports and tourism.
The crisis had left the government with only 72 MPs, and the Europhile opposition had used the opportunity to demand snap elections.
Following the deal on Tuesday, they accused Hlas and SNS lawmakers of caring only about posts, power, and deals, not about values or democracy.
Opposition parties have been supporting protests against the government in recent months, accusing Fico of re-orientating the country’s foreign policy towards Moscow. The prime minister has rejected the attacks, insisting that Slovakia is embedded in the structures of the European Union and NATO—while adding that he wants a pragmatic relationship with all the other global powers.
Fico has been harshly criticised by the EU liberal elites for pursuing a sovereignist, Eurosceptic, anti-migration, and anti-war policy—and has been threatened with the withholding of EU funds to Slovakia.
According to the latest opinion polls, Fico’s Smer and the opposition liberal Progressive Slovakia are neck and neck: the former has the support of 22% of the electorate, the latter has 21%.
