During the last parliamentary session of the year the ruling four-party coalition has had to deal with two blows below the belt from its own ranks.
The first came as four KDH MPs defected from the vote on excise tax for beer, which was enough to stop the government’s plans and left a EUR 15 million hole in its efforts to cut the deficit.
The second slap, and one which left it with a red face, was the crucial vote on the Attorney General post, which could even have brought the government down if a particular SNS MP had not been absent from parliament or if one of the two void votes had been cast properly.
All of the coalition parties are perturbed by the developments. Head of the KDH caucus, Pavol Hrusovsky, said today that the coalition is at freezing point and that in terms of conscience and morals, the discipline has vanished when it comes to important decisions. Hrusovsky complained that he could not work in such an atmosphere where certain people are obviously lying. “It is not possible to live with this uncertainty, nor work or manage the country” he said.
“We have sunk so low” said head of the Most-Hid party, Bela Bugar, adding that his faith in the coalition had already been damaged in the first Attorney General vote in November, because of the lack of agreement within the coalition.
Martin Poliacik from the SaS party said that the crisis has been caused by a few individuals who have to make up their minds whether their own petty interests have priority over the coalition.