Relations between the ruling parties and the opposition have never been exactly ‘rosy’, but now nationalist party vice-chairwoman Anna Belousovova has taken things to a new level. She decided to slap Igor Matovic from the ruling SaS party in the face, simply for using a grammatical ‘derogation’ of her name Anna, when in an article for his own newspaper he referred to her as Anča (which in Slovak is slightly derogatory).
Talking to journalists, Matovic explained: “She gave me a maternal slap. She came up to me, presented the article to me and asked if I had written it, then if by Anča I was referring to her. I said, yes”. She then slapped him in the face. He went on to say that he regarded the slap as a “demonstration of her Christian love” and that he “would turn the other cheek”. He was surprised that she could take offence to something so trivial, especially as she herself refers to her parliamentary colleagues as ‘rats’ and other insulting names.
Matovic took the advice of PM Iveta Radicova not to pursue the incident further, saying: “She’s brought shame on herself. I won’t pursue some payback or press charges.” He stood by his comments in the article, in which he said she was an embarrassment to Christians because she stood back for four years and watched thieves get away with stealing.
In reaction Belousovova said that she was merely trying to show Mr. Matovic how a gentleman should behave towards a lady. It is true that in the Slovak parliament things haven’t quite reached the level seen in some other countries, with huge fights breaking out among politicians, but maybe now that the ice has been broken, who knows!