The liberal SaS party (Freedom and Solidarity party) has split into two factions in the wake of the recent party election battle between reelected head Richard Sulik and his only contender, Jozef Kollar.
The speculations that the party, which did exceptionally well back in the 2010 elections (12.14%), would splinter, were proven right as Kollar has now departed along with another four top party members Juraj Miškov, Daniel Krajcer, Juraj Droba and Martin Chren, and around 75 others.
Kollar and his backers felt the party needed a different kind of leadership than that of co-founder Sulik, criticising foremost the way he communicated and dealt with people. The party’s future in parliament is now in question as at least eight seats are needed for a parliamentary caucus, but with the latest split the SaS party now holds just six.
According to SME daily, the standalone Smer-SD government will ensure that the party, PM Fico’s biggest critic, is dissolved. The other members plan to set up a kind of civil association based on a framework agreement, which will most likely evolve into a new party in prep for the parliamentary elections in 2016.
Crazy decision. A little bit of success and name recognition, they could have built on that and made a challenge. Government involves compromise and negotiation and SaS are showing a shortage of these skills. It would be more effective of them to work together under a single umbrella.
Fico has made a lot of promises that will be difficult to keep but somehow he’s the only serious contender for PM. That’s until the public revolt at the corruption or the country doesn’t meet its deficit obligations and the EU appoint a placeman.
BTW: Could the split be due to separate parties having an increased possibility to access public money?
The centre right politicians may as well form their own one man parties. They haven’t a clue about working together and don’t seem to realise that splitting the vote ( if they get any ) will only result in them having to work together in a coalition at some time in the future. BnM must be like a dog with two tails at this news!
Doooomed, Doooomed , yet another ANO, (LAST) HOPE and others that went this way ….all DOOOOOOMED !