It was probably bound to happen sooner or later anyway, but the SaS party’s inevitable ejection of Igor Matovic from their caucus could possibly produce an almost revolutionary upheaval of parliament.
Now standing in parliament as an independent MP, Igor Matovic is contemplating setting up a different kind of party where independent MPs can function as they are without having to bow to the whips of some party loyalty and discipline. The hope is that MPs can vote on their own conscience and convictions, which Matovic believes is the best way to improve legislation.
Matovic says that because MPs would then vote based on what is right and wrong, good and bad, they would be finally doing what they were elected for in the first place. He spoke out against his expulsion from the SaS merely for voting according to his conscience, saying that those who believed in freedom and the Constitution would have to condemn it. He mentioned how even the opposition leaders Jan Slota and Robert Fico, who he says trampled on democracy, were still more democratic than those who pretend to be.
On the establishment of ‘the independents’ party, Matovic said he was basically being forced into it because he cannot imagine laws being changed to allow independent MPs to get into parliament. His form of party could change that, though, as it would act like a channel for independent candidates to make it into parliament. Matovic became the third independent MP in parliament after the expulsion of former Bratislava mayor Andrej Durkovsky from the KDH party and Anna Belousovova from nationalist party SNS.
Matovic says his Obycajni Ludia (Ordinary People) faction will continue to support the government, but given their past friction even within the SaS party and the lack of complete support to date, it is hard to see how he and his three colleagues from OP will behave now. The other three members of the faction are still with the SaS, but if Matovic has aspirations of a party for independents, they might not be hanging around for long.