Kiska Scraps World Cup Skiing Programme Due to Election Results

Bratislava, March 6 (TASR) – President Andrej Kiska on Sunday scrapped his original plans to watch the FIS World Cup skiing at Jasna in the Low Tatras this weekend and returned to Bratislava due to the results of Saturday’s general election, TASR was told by Kiska’s communications chief Roman Krpelan on Sunday.

“The president is preparing himself for political talks,” said Krpelan, adding that Kiska will comment on the election results on Monday. At the same time he’ll announce what he plans to do.

According to the Constitution, it’s up to the president to commission a representative of a party that has made it into Parliament to attempt to form up a government. This task is given first to the chief of the party that has received the highest number of votes in the election – even if it seems that the party might not be able to put together a coalition. This process is limited to 30 days, at which time the president can turn to another party.

According to the Slovak Statistics Office’s unofficial preliminary results, the election was won by Smer-SD on 28.28 percent. Apart from Smer, another seven parties made it into Parliament: Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) – 12.10 percent, OLaNO-NOVA – 11.02 percent, the Slovak National Party (SNS) – 8.64 percent, Kotleba-People’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) – 8.04 percent, We Are Family-Boris Kollar – 6.62 percent, Most-Hid – 6.5 percent and Siet – 5.6 percent.