Danko Won't Face Ouster Attempt; House Fails to Adopt Session Agenda

Bratislava, November 6 (TASR) – Parliamentary Chairman Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party/SNS) won’t face an Opposition-initiated attempt to oust him, as only 64 MPs of the 139 present in the House voted for the agenda of the special session that was supposed to be convened to this effect, TASR learnt on Tuesday.

The Opposition wanted to oust Danko mainly in relation to a scandal concerning the authorship of his rigorous thesis.

Coalition parties Smer-SD and SNS voted against the session’s agenda, while most coalition Most-Hid party MPs abstained from the vote. Independent MPs Peter Marcek, Martina Simkovicova and Rastislav Holubek also voted against the session’s agenda. The remaining legislators, including those from the Opposition SaS, OLaNO, We Are Family and LSNS as well as other Independent MPs, voted in favour.

Danko was supposed to face an attempt to oust him in Parliament, as he failed to meet SaS’s deadline to disclose his rigorous thesis within a week.

Parliamentary Vice-chair Lucia Duris Nicholsonova (SaS) saw another reason to dismiss him, claiming that his pro-Russian ambitions directly contradict Slovakia’s foreign policy.

Another reason stated by the Opposition was that Danko deliberately prevents Slovakia’s Security and Military Strategies from being adopted by Parliament.