Matovic: For the People Party Can Have No More Than Two Ministries
Bratislava, March 5 (TASR) – Within the division of ministries, the For the People party should have no more than two ministries, OLaNO leader Igor Matovic, who was tasked by President Zuzana Caputova with forming the government, said before the meeting of OLaNO, We Are Family, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and For the People leaders on Thursday.
Matovic considers one of the priorities of the future government is to guarantee that public-service media can behave absolutely apolitically under any government.
Matovic believes that For the People isn’t considering three ministries, as they would thus deny the calculations. However, he doesn’t currently perceive the distribution of ministries between the parties as a problem. Matovic said that For the People is at the right address if it wants to push through the fight against corruption, the development of regions, and assistance to socially disadvantaged people. He added that he had concurred on this with the leaders of other parties of the potential four-strong coalition.
In the future government, the OLaNO leader also wants to deal with the independence and apolitical nature of the public-service media. According to him, it is necessary to guarantee using a constitutional law that public-service media under any government can behave absolutely apolitically, pointing to the efforts of several personalities to promote different interests through the media. According to him, this should be avoided in the future.
Matovic also commented on the nomination of parliamentary vice-chairs, stressing that one post of vice-chairman should belong to the strongest opposition party. In view of the results of the parliamentary election, this is Smer-SD. If the party nominates Peter Pellegrini to the post of parliamentary vice-chair, Matovic will respect the nomination, adding that everything depends on an agreement in the future coalition. However, he would personally favour Pellegrini in this position over party chairman Robert Fico.
The head of OLaNO further said that he will initiate a meeting at the Slovak central bank (NBS) on Monday (March 9) about proposals to undertake the mass construction of rental flats, which is the programme priority of We Are Family.
In addition to the We Are Family and SaS leaders, Matovic also invited top economists from Slovakia and Austria, experts from the Financial Policy Institute, the Value for Money unit as well as the NBS. Matovic wants to know whether such a proposal has potential and whether it is possible to obtain funding for such public investments.
