Following the failed confidence vote late last night that saw the four-party coalition government of PM Iveta Radicova fall to its knees, President Ivan Gasparovic has cancelled the remainder of his official trip to SE Asia so he can come home and deal with the situation.
The vote was rather clumsily combined with a vote to extend the capacity of the EFSF bailout fund, and it was this that led to the demise of the current coalition. Now the President will decide whether to do nothing and leave the government in power (a theoretical option only), select someone to try and form a government (surely Robert Fico) or immediately call for parliamentary elections.
If the President presents Robert Fico with the chance of forming a government, he has 30 days in which he must gain confidence in parliament to do so. Failing that, new elections will be called automatically.
Even though a small country, the outcome of the Slovak vote, which was more or less known in advance as everyone was sticking to their stubborn stances, affected certain commodity markets throughout the world and helped weaken the euro and bash investor trust for the time being.
President Gasparovic should get back to Slovakia sometime on Saturday morning, along with his delegation, which includes economy minister Juraj Miskov, one of the leading figures in the SaS party (Freedom and Solidarity) which stood so firmly against the new EFSF proposals. They will either have a lot to talk about or a deadly silence will hang over their shared journey.