MP Svrcek Proposes to Amend in Constitution Options for Snap Election
Bratislava, January 14 (TASR) – MP Milos Svrcek (We Are Family) submitted to Parliament a proposal to amend the Constitution so that it is possible to shorten the electoral term of Parliament via a constitutional law as well as a referendum, TASR learnt on Friday.
Among other things, he proposes that a referendum on a snap election should not take place in the first or last year of the electoral term. According to the proposal, in the event of a successful referendum, the parliamentary chair should announce a parliamentary election within seven days of announcing a valid result of the referendum.
“The proposed amendment aims to respond to the ruling of the Constitutional Court of July 7, 2021 on the constitutionality of the subject of the referendum,” the author said in the explanatory report.
The MP proposes that the changes take effect on March 1, 2024.
The coalition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party considers the proposal of MP Milos Svrcek (We Are Family) to amend the Constitution, which he submitted to Parliament on Friday, to be an arbitrary violation of the coalition agreement, TASR was told by SaS spokesman Ondrej Sprlak on the same day.
“From our point of view, this is another step of the ‘We Are Family’ party towards working with the opposition and leaving the coalition,” said SaS.
The coalition is preparing a change that wouldn’t allow a referendum in this electoral term, head of the extra-parliamentary Voice-SD party and independent MP Peter Pellegrini said in response to the proposal of MP Milos Svrcek (We Are Family) to amend the constitution, which he submitted to Parliament on Friday.
The ex-premier said that this is a betrayal of the basic democratic principle. “Despite the citizens’ resistance, the governing coalition is going to fix itself in office until 2024 and spit in the face of people who lent them the power,” he stated.
Pellegrini further stated that they’ll submit an amendment to Parliament, which will “return power in Slovakia to the people”. “We’ll call on all parliamentary parties to support this change and not to forget who lent them their posts. And we’ll also call on people to help us in this pressure,” added Pellegrini.
The opposition and trade unionists collected 600,000 signatures last year to initiate a referendum on an early election. In the case of the petition, President Zuzana Caputova approached the Constitutional Court, which decided in July 2021 that the proposed referendum question on a snap election was unconstitutional. Caputova said in response that she would call a referendum on an early election if Parliament decided to change the Constitution and subsequently adopted a resolution requesting its holding.
