Heger: Not Necessary to Ask Parliament for Vote of Confidence in Government

Bratislava, September 7 (TASR) – Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO) stated at a press conference on Tuesday that he’s of the opinion that there’s no need to initiate a vote of confidence in the Government in Parliament.

Heger claimed that the premier is supposed to initiate such a vote when a government is established, and it’s not mandatory to have Parliament’s confidence approved regularly.

Nevertheless, Heger conceded that he and his now minority Cabinet would not survive such a vote if it came down to it, stating that he might as well resign outright as initiate a vote with 70 coalition MPs.

“However, if I resigned now, we wouldn’t be able to give people anything. Until the next election, and we don’t know when that will take place, Slovakia would be in agony, and we wouldn’t be able to adopt any measures for the public. I will not put Slovakia at such a risk,” said the prime minister.

In this vein, the premier remarked that he doesn’t understand why he should ask Parliament to take part in a vote of confidence in his Cabinet. “It isn’t necessary at all. We know that we have 70 MPs, but we won’t abandon ship when we can see that we’re heading into a challenging energy storm,” he said.

At the same time, Heger refused to say who should replace the Freedom and Solidarity ministers now that they’ve all resigned, stating that he’ll announce their names only after President Caputova approves their nomination.