Today, the 23 June, Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic assigned the task of forming the new Slovak government to coalition leader from SDKU-DS, Iveta Radicova, after outgoing PM Robert Fico had to let go of the privilege he was given on Monday 14 June after winning the elections with 34.79 percent of the vote. Fico was not able to ‘convince’ anyone to form a coalition with him to get the necessary 76 seats in parliament.
Radicova informed Gasparovic how a coalition government had been agreed between SDKU-DS, SaS, KDH and Most-Hid. After his meeting today with representatives of the four centre-right parties, President Gasparovic said: “Based on SDKU-DS’s mandate, I’ve given Iveta Radicova the mandate to form a new government”. Radicova accepted the task, of course, with the deadline being set for Thursday 8 July, when Gasparovic plans to summon the opening parliamentary session.
“I’m very honoured to accept the task of forming the government. I’ll do my utmost to make sure the government will be a government for the citizens, an open one, and one that will be able to say it has been a successful after four years,” said Radicova.
After a 10-hour meeting yesterday, the four parties agreed on the core points of the manifesto. They will now meet this afternoon to discuss the coalition agreement, including who will occupy which ministries.
All of the parties had to make concessions, however, as they claimed that putting the general interest was foremost, and not the interests of individual parties. This means they have all had to go back on some of their promises made to voters, but as head of SaS, Rcihard Sulik, said: “I’d rather explain to our voters why there won’t be decriminalisation of marijuana or registered partnerships, than explain why we rejected this government and why we contributed to letting Fico ‘terrorise’ here for who knows how many years to come”.