One of Slovakia’s most prominent political figures, Vladimir Meciar, has finally decided to abandon his beloved LS-HZDS party, which he set up back in 1991. The LS-HZDS party has been rapidly losing ground for years while Meciar kept his grip on the party, but after a catastrophic election result of less than 1% in March [...]
The wrestling for position is well underway within the SDKU party as members seek to elect the new party chairperson, in the hope of bouncing back from its disastrous election result. Competing for the top post in the party election on 19 May will be former justice minister Lucia Zitnanska, who was first to jump [...]
Prime Minister Robert Fico made his first official visit in the post to the Czech Republic today, where he held talks with his Czech counterpart Petr Necas on deepening co-operation on various levels. Among other things, the two PMs talked about economic co-operation, a potential joint venture railway company, co-operation in nuclear energy, and even [...]
PM Robert Fico is still clinging to the label he put on the liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party as a group of pot smokers, as they have always supported the decriminalisation of marijuana. Remarking on a legislative proposal from the SaS party on reducing the number of MPs (from 150 to 100) and on [...]
Transparency International Slovensko (TIS) is not happy about how the government is appointing its own people as heads of key supervisory authorities the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) and the Public Procurement Office (UVO), and is demanding that the posts be filled by selection proceedings instead. The political watchdog TIS issued a statement yesterday, which reads [...]
The Protest Gorilla civil movement is calling on the new government of Robert Fico to change certain nominations that the protesters feel are dubious, with potential crony ties with financial groups. Specifically, the movement is demanding the recall of freshly appointed health minister Zuzana Zvolenska and economy minister Tomas Malatinsky, as they both worked in [...]
As the new Slovak government settles into its cosy parliamentary majority, the switch of control in various state-run institutions is well underway, with head of the controversial state lottery company TIPOS the latest to be dethroned. Newly appointed finance minister Peter Kazimir took the decision today to end the term of office of TIPOS general director [...]
Financial group Penta has been the subject of scrutiny by the media ever since the Gorilla corruption affair broke, with allegations that it has been in cahoots with political figures for years, and now it has been revealed that Penta partner Jaroslav Hascak has been renting a house from newly appointed economy minister Tomas Malatinsky [...]
It’s official, the Slovak Republic now has a new government, the first stand-alone government in Slovakia’s almost 23 years of democratic history. led by Prime Minister Robert Fico, who took his constitutional oath and was appointed Prime Minister today by President Ivan Gasparovic. All of the 150 members of parliament, including the PM, all swore [...]
Relations with the opposition will not be so rosy for Robert Fico and his new government after he announced plans not to grant the opposition control over the public procurement authority UVO, designating it instead to an “expert” who will be nominated by a professional organisation. The latest plan, announced at a press conference yesterday [...]
Recent Comments