Opposition Fails to Oust Prime Minister Pellegrini

Bratislava, September 17 (TASR) – Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) will remain as Slovak prime minister, as the opposition has failed to garner enough votes to oust him in Parliament, TASR learnt on Tuesday.

Opposition parties wanted to unseat Pellegrini because he didn’t propose that Monika Jankovska (Smer-SD) should be dismissed from the post of Justice Ministry state secretary after information emerged concerning her alleged communications with entrepreneur Marian K., who has been charged with ordering the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak.

Sixty-two MPs voted in favour of the prime minister’s removal from office, 66 were against, and three abstained. The no-confidence vote in the premier closed the extraordinary 50th parliamentary session.

The discussion on the proposal, which lasted almost 11 hours, ended before midnight on Friday (September 13). The debate was opened by OLaNO leader Igor Matovic, who spent nearly two hours explaining the reasons for initiating the extraordinary session.

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini sat in chamber during the debate as well as the vote. On Friday, he responded to a number of speeches and remarks made by MPs. Matovic said that if the prime minister had dismissed Monika Jankovska from her post, “he would have breathed new life into Smer-SD”. Pellegrini claimed that the reasons for his dismissal were weak, noting that Jankovska was longer in office. Several coalition lawmakers also pointed to communications between opposition MPs and Marian K.

The premier was originally supposed to face the no-confidence vote on September 6 and then on September 9. In both cases the session couldn’t begin as not enough MPs were present.