Danko Not to Face No-Confidence Vote; House Fails to Adopt Session Agenda

Danko Not to Face No-Confidence Vote; House Fails to Adopt Session Agenda

Bratislava, May 4 (TASR) – Parliamentary Chairman Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party/SNS) won’t face an Opposition-initiated attempt to oust him, as only 54 MPs out of the 131 present in the House voted for the agenda of the extraordinary session on Thursday.

The Opposition wanted to oust Danko over the scandal concerning opening of letters addressed to MPs by the Parliament Office.

All the present MPs from the Opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, OLaNO-NOVA, We Are Family, the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), as well as the majority of Independent MPs voted for the agenda, while the caucuses of Smer-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Most-Hid were against.

Matovic last week went public with a claim that Danko had ordered Parliament Office chief Daniel Guspan to introduce a policy of opening letters addressed to individual MPs if they are sent by private individuals or if they are apparently anonymous. If the letters are found to contain profanities or other offensive content, they shouldn’t be forwarded to the recipients, but archived and shredded after three months.

Guspan rejected Matovic’s accusations, describing such claims as lies. He also called on Matovic to present evidence for his claims or to desist from making the accusations.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) backed Danko last week claiming that he sees no reason to debate Danko’s ouster and that Smer won’t vote in favour of such a motion. The premier also believes that the Opposition’s initiative to remove Danko from office is spurred on by hatred – and the Coalition refuses to get involved in it.