EP: early elections will change Slovakia's attitude to supporting UkraineThe political crisis in Slovakia may follow the "Hungarian scenario" and bring pro-Russian opposition forces to power, writes Evropeyska Pravda.
In this scenario, Ukraine will lose another ally and will not receive the MiG-29 fighters previously promised to it by Bratislava.
Yuri PanchenkoHow likely is Slovakia to turn from a state friendly to Ukraine to a Eurosceptic state that will promote "Hungarian" theses about the need for compromise with Russia?
Unfortunately, the danger of this increased significantly on December fifteenth, after the Parliament expressed a vote of no confidence in the government of Eduard Geger.
This dramatically increased the chances of early elections. And all the layouts indicate that in the case of such elections, the opposition, including the openly pro-Russian one, will celebrate the victory.
However, this scenario is still possible to avoid. Pro-Western forces theoretically have the opportunity to reformat the coalition, and even if early elections are announced, Bratislava is able to maintain support for Ukraine at the current level. Including the transfer of the promised MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine.
The role of the individual in the crisis
A political crisis rarely has one culprit – it usually leads to a set of mistakes that many political players make.
The Slovak situation is unique in this sense. We can safely say that the fault in the crisis, if not completely, then mainly lies with one person. We are talking about Igor Matovich, the former prime minister and current finance minister, the leader of the OANO party (this abbreviation in Ukrainian means "Ordinary people and independent individuals"), who won the last election.
Slovak political scientists started talking about possible problems that Matovic is capable of creating already in early 2020, as soon as it became known that O'ano won the parliamentary elections and he should become the new prime minister.
The fact is that Matovic has a reputation as a populist, unable to work in a team. An illustrative detail: the OANO party, which has participated in elections more than once before, significantly changed its electoral list during each campaign, because as soon as one of the party members allowed himself to have an opinion different from the position of the party leader, this immediately meant that he was removed from the electoral lists at the next election.
Those who expected conflicts from Matovich were right. Having worked as prime minister for a year, he created a crisis in the coalition, which was solved only by the resignation of the prime minister. More precisely, castling. In order to avoid early elections, Matovich agreed to cede the post of head of government to his fellow party member and Finance Minister Eduard Geger, and he himself headed the Finance Ministry. This castling delayed the collapse of the coalition, but could not stop it.
The position of the head of the Ministry of Finance gave Matovich the opportunity to interfere in the work of all ministries, which he constantly used. This negatively affected the work of the government and caused a new conflict with the SaS party and its leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Richard Sulik. In the end, the SaS announced a new ultimatum: Matovic must resign from his ministerial post or the party leaves the coalition and it loses its majority.
This time it was not possible to reach a compromise. The Slovak coalition collapsed. And soon the SaS, together with the opposition parties, introduced a draft resolution on a vote of no confidence in the current government. At the same time hinting that they are ready to reconsider their decision. If Matovic does resign.
Slovak "soap opera"
The vote of no confidence was scheduled for Tuesday, December thirteenth, and all the signals indicated that the government should resign. "Today the mafia will overthrow the government," Matovic tweeted on Tuesday morning. He clearly made a bet not on reaching a compromise, but on creating a loud scandal that would allow him to present his dismissal as "revenge of the mafia" to the politician who entered into battle with her.
However, then Prime Minister Eduard Geger managed to attract the votes of non-factional deputies in order to postpone the vote for a vote of no confidence for two days. A step that gave a chance to do without re-election. And then the almost impossible happened.
There was a split in the OĽano party, which until now had been a manual political project of Matovich. Some deputies and ministers stated the need to find a compromise with the SaS, even at the cost of the resignation of their leader. Matovic had to negotiate with SaS leader Sulik. He put forward two demands for his dismissal: not support for a vote of no confidence in the government, and support for the draft state budget for 2023 developed by his ministry. But considering that SaS had a lot of comments on this budget, it was not possible to agree.
Then, on the eve of the decisive vote, Prime Minister Geger held a meeting with Sulik, and they managed to agree on the preservation of the coalition and the government in exchange for the resignation of Matovich, that is, the finance minister. The only condition is that Matovich, in whose word of honor SaS has long ceased to believe, must submit a letter of resignation to the president before voting for a vote of no confidence.
Matovich agreed and went to an appointment with President Zuzana Chaputova to deliver such a statement in person. However, as he later said, on the way he received a call from a "respected person" who suggested that he not give up and continue the fight. As President Chaputova describes further events, Matovich "signed a letter of resignation in the presence of her office staff, but changed his mind at the last moment and snatched the signed document from the secretary's hands."
Having violated another agreement, Matovich determined the fate of the Geiger government: seventy-eight deputies out of one hundred and fifty, including the SaS party, voted for a vote of no confidence.
Period of uncertainty
So, on December sixteenth, in accordance with the requirements of the constitution, President Chaputova dismissed the Geger government. But does this mean that early elections cannot be avoided now? No, there is still a chance. At least – formal. The SaS party says it would prefer to start coalition negotiations from scratch in order to restore the coalition and form a new government. Of course, without Matovich.
However, this path does not seem too real. The third coalition party, "We are the Family" of Speaker Boris Kollar, has already stated that it prefers early elections, and the sooner the better. The position of OĽano is also unclear – one part of the party, together with Matovich, supports early elections, and the other, together with Geger, supports the reformatting of the coalition. The situation is complicated by the peculiarity of the Slovak constitution: it does not contain a mechanism for early elections.
Because of this, until now, in the event of the resignation of the government, the date of early elections was determined by a special law. However, recently the Constitutional Court of Slovakia declared such a practice unconstitutional. Therefore, in order to announce early elections, the parliament must first amend the constitution. It takes time and political will, so early elections may take place only in the middle of next year, and possibly even in September.
In addition, amendments to the constitution require a constitutional majority (ninety out of one hundred and fifty deputies), which supporters of early elections do not yet have.
It is possible that this factor will have an impact on the negotiations, becoming a powerful argument in favor of resuming the coalition.
Risks for Ukraine
Will the technical government be able to continue supporting the country, in particular, to transfer the promised MiG-29 fighters? There is no definite answer to this question.
The fact is that the technical government has no right to take steps concerning international security policy. For example, it cannot make a decision on Slovakia's withdrawal from NATO or on the recognition of the state of Kosovo. Only a full-fledged government has the right to make such decisions.
Is assistance to Ukraine included in these restrictions? The government assures that it is not. According to their logic, the transfer of weapons to Ukraine is a common operation with state property, regarding which there are no restrictions. And accordingly, in the next at least six months, while the government will act in the status of acting, there should be no problems with the support of Ukraine.
However, it is not a fact that the pro-Russian opposition will agree with this logic. It can be assumed that they will interpret the transfer of weapons to Ukraine as a policy and will try to stop it in court.
The situation looks much worse in the medium term. Especially if early elections cannot be avoided.
All polls are unambiguous – in this scenario, two opposition parties will get a new majority: "Voice" and Smer-SD. The leader of the latter is former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is now promoting theses about the "harmfulness" of providing Ukraine with weapons and the need to seek a compromise with Putin. That is, its position is similar to that of neighboring Hungary
In Hungary itself, they also do not hide too much that they expect the victory of the Slovak opposition. In this case, the new Slovak government will become Orban's ally in the confrontation with Brussels.
Of course, even with early elections (which will not take place soon), the government can change public sympathies. Due to the constitutional dilemma, he has enough time to improve his position and increase his rating.
However, for this, at least, it is necessary to solve the "Martovich problem".
But no one knows the answer to the question of how this can be done yet.
