HZDS on the way out?
The temporary armistice within the Government coalition, which lasted a mere 24 hours, has come to a definitive end, leaving the three coalition parties with draggers drawn. Once again doors were slammed at the Coalition Council, but this time it was ĽS- HZDS chief Vladimír Mečiar, not Premier Robert Fico, storming out of the hastily-called meeting.
We'll overturn your amnesties
Mečiar caught congregated journalists by surprise with his statement that Smer- Social Democracy no longer wanted his populist party within the government. "The Premier has informed us that he is no longer willing to continue in a coalition," claimed Mečiar on his way out of the emergency Council. In addition, Fico allegedly presented his partners with a new and unexpected agenda -- the repeal of the so-called Mečiar amnesties, and proof of origin of property.
For the HZDS boss these are very sensitive subjects, since his amnesty relating to the kidnapping of the son of the then-serving President, Michal Kováč, prevented an investigation into the SIS secret-service head Ivan Lexa. Source of finances legislation would probe uncomfortably close to Mečiar's long-unexplained purchase of his villa, Elektra.
Who's working with Dzurinda?
Fico yesterday told Mečiar that he would not tolerate revenge and a slow undermining of the government coalition, which he accused Mečiar of organizing along with SDKÚ Chairman Mikuláš Dzurinda.
On hearing these words, Mečiar got up from the Council round table and left the meeting room. "Life sometimes brings along criminality, to which it is necessary to react, and we are reacting on principle," Fico announced after a Smer-SD MPs meeting yesterday evening. The Premier refused to comment on the coalition's future.
English translation by Kevin Slavin