SaS Withdraws from Coalition Agreement, Demands Matovic's Ouster
Bratislava, July 6 (TASR) – The SaS party is withdrawing from the coalition agreement and expects Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO) to draft a new one that will reflect the current political state of affairs and incorporate Finance Minister Igor Matovic’s (OLaNO) ouster.
If this doesn’t happen by the end of August, all SaS-nominated ministers will tender their resignations. The party passed this decision at its extraordinary extended republican council on Wednesday.
“The greatest problem of the coalition is called Igor Matovic. I’m saddened to be uttering such a sentence, we’ve known each other for 12 years after all and fought on the same side for many long years, went at it together, he started out on our party slate, but looking the other way is no longer possible,” SaS leader and Economy Minister Richard Sulik declared. If the OLaNO reciprocally demands his resignation, Sulik will think about it and cross that bridge when he comes to it.
The SaS party plans to submit its demands to the Prime Minister in writing, so these can serve as a springboard for a new coalition agreement. “For the greater good of society, relations within the coalition must change and if the OLaNO is incapable of making the changes, then that task falls to the SaS. We can’t keep governing this way,” underlined Sulik, adding that the functioning of the coalition is “marred by a single person with self-control issues”.
Sulik criticised Matovic’s approach to public finances, as he believes that the OLaNO leader has turned the state coffers into a private wallet for his ideas.
The liberals also raised other demands beside Matovic’s resignation. Sulik finds it unacceptable having to beg the Finance Ministry for salary hikes for teachers, health personnel and state administration employees at least to compensate for the inflation, all the while being a witness to the “splurging of hundreds of millions of euros”.
Had the SaS failed to do anything about this, it would have been responsible for the “triumphant return of Robert Fico” after the regular parliamentary election, as in Sulik’s view that is the endgame to which Matovic’s actions are steering Slovakia.
