Early election on the horizon
“The coalition is starting to divert from its priorities, and governing that stops having signs of high professionalism has no long-term prospects,“ said PM Peter Pellegrini. The SNS is willing to vote for an early election but the party says “it’s irrelevant what Pellegrini says. He became PM by a chance and only Robert Fico’s opinions are relevant“. Most-Híd would not rule out an early election either. The latest sources of tension within the coalition are the presidential election (neither SNS nor Most-Híd back Smer’s candidate), the US military grant (the SNS has rejected it, to the dismay of the other two parties), the selection of Constitutional Court judges (Most-Híd refused to back Robert Fico), and tax cuts (the SNS and Most-Híd submitted their proposals to parliament without consulting their coalition partners first).
One of the reasons for an early election is that the general election is scheduled for March 2020, just after anti-government protests on the 2nd anniversary of Ján Kuciak’s murder. Since mass rallies are also expected for November 17, on the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the coalition is likely to opt for October as the date for an early election. Parliament would need to vote for such a date in April.
The opposition party OĽaNO has stated it would also vote for an early election.
