Analyst: SNS Brings Slovakia Closer to Snap Election

Bratislava, March 12 (TASR) – The Slovak National Party (SNS) congress on Saturday has brought Slovakia closer to a fresh general election, political analyst Michal Horsky told TASR later in the day.

“SNS has increased its price and weight on the political scene, and at the same time it has brought Slovakia closer to a caretaker government and an early election,” said Horsky.

Meanwhile, it’s obvious that Robert Fico’s (Smer-SD) first attempt to form a government will fail. Nevertheless, Richard Sulik’s (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) alternative may not be viable, either, stated the analyst.

“Following the SNS congress and the party’s chairman Andrej Danko’s statements, it’s obvious that SNS won’t enter into a government with non-standard parties,” said Horsky.

So, President Andrej Kiska will most probably now enter the stage to appoint a caretaker government, setting its term and scope of action, mainly in view of the upcoming Slovakia’s Presidency of the EU Council in the second half of this year.

TASR also approached analyst Jan Baranek, who noted that Danko’s comments on non-standard parties were perfectly in line with his pre-election statements. Nevertheless, according to Baranek, any chances for creating a rightist coalition had most likely already been destroyed earlier by the animosity between OLaNO-NOVA and Most-Hid. [OLaNO-NOVA head Igor Matovic shortly before the general election sent out 250,000 leaflets to households in southern Slovakia encouraging the local ethnic Hungarians to prefer the Party of Hungarian Community (SMK) to Most-Hid on the election day. – ed. note]

“Three scenarios now come into consideration. One of them is a government of Smer-SD, Siet, Most-Hid and SNS. The second one is a caretaker government with a defined date for a snap election,” said Baranek, adding that the third alternative features a coalition of Smer-SD, SaS and other parties – with or without SNS.

If some of the aforementioned parties decide to go along with Smer-SD, they could say that they’ll be there to fight corruption, said Baranek, adding that Most-Hid and Siet will now probably come to the foreground.

When asked whether caretaker government is now the most likely option, Baranek pointed out that many people who hadn’t been in Parliament have now got in, so their chief interest will be to remain ensconced there as long as possible. In addition, there are parties that could drop out of Parliament altogether in a possible snap election. “This concerns chiefly Siet,” said Baranek, concluding that this provides quite a large scope for a compromise to be reached.