The interim technocratic Slovak government led by independent economist Ľudovít Ódor, appointed last month, has already lost a no-confidence vote in the parliament. Officials now blame petty political quarreling for paralyzing the country. PM Ódor and his government, however, will remain at the helm, albeit with limited authority, ma7.sk wrote on Thursday, June 15th.
After a two-day parliamentary debate about the provisional government’s program—which only included plans for a few months, until the September elections—the Slovak parliament voted to withdraw the mandate of PM Ódor and his cabinet, with 34 MPs in support of the program, 43 against, and 54 abstentions.
The government was mostly supported by the smaller conservative Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, while the larger center-right bloc, OL’aNO, and the far-right Sme Rodina abstained, and it was exclusively leftist MPs, mostly belonging to the socialist SmerSD, who moved against Ódor.
What the Left apparently did not think through was that such a move would not necessarily change anything in the government or its program. What it does do is cripple the decision-making process, because President Čaputová appointed Ódor as acting prime minister again. To no one’s surprise, he’ll be implementing the same plan, although with lesser authority.
As we reported, Ódor—an independent economist, university professor, and vice resident of the Slovakian National Bank—was appointed to lead a technocratic government in early May after PM Eduard Heger (himself leading a provisional government) resigned in a corruption scandal and left his center-right OL’aNO party for the center-left Democrats.
Heger initially served as finance minister in a center-right coalition after the conservative, anti-establishment OL’aNO won the 2020 election, running on a specifically anti-corruption platform. He became prime minister after OL’aNO’s junior coalition partners threatened to quit over dissatisfaction with the leadership of then-PM Igor Matovič in 2021, and was later reduced to a caretaker position after losing a no-confidence vote in December last year as the coalition fell apart.
This means that Ódor is now the third Slovakian Prime Minister to have his mandate taken away by political scheming in two years.
However, President Zuzana Čaputová decided to keep Ódor in his provisional leadership position, just as she initially did with Heger after he lost a similar vote. The only difference is that Heger went from elected PM to acting PM, while Ódor was only acting prime minister to begin with. Therefore, his responsibilities and authority will have to be restricted further, meaning that President Čaputová will need to sign off on all major decisions herself.
“The parliament has deprived itself of power by not giving confidence to the Ódor cabinet. It has left everything to the president, I do not understand this attitude,” said SaS President Richard Sulík.
Ex-PM Eduard Heger also denounced the socialists, saying that they only voted against Ódor to make his job harder and exploit the political instability. “It was to be expected that self-serving politicians would not support the Ódor government, even though it is important for the country that this cabinet succeeds,” Heger said, adding that he is rooting for Ódor to “bear the burden of governing without confidence. I know what it’s like.”
The MPs of the socialist SmerSD were outraged at Čaputová’s decision to keep Ódor, calling for the resignation of the entire cabinet, while the center-right OL’aNO said they will support every action of the PM, despite abstaining from the vote.
