Is Fico’s coalition in Slovakia at risk of collapse?

At a press conference, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico became agitated when journalists inquired about issues within the coalition.

For about four months now, the Slovak parliament has been without a speaker. This situation has arisen due to a conflict within the coalition.

One of the explanations for this is that Fico’s Smer-SD party came to power criticizing its predecessors for constant quarrels within the coalition. Numerous conflicts are shaking Fico’s coalition only a year after the formation of the new government.

Despite not targeting Fico or his party, the conflicts are eroding the government’s strength. And they are doing so at a time when there are difficult challenges ahead.

The parties to the conflict are, on the one hand, the center-left Golos party and its former chairman, now Slovak President Peter Pellegrini, and, on the other hand, the smallest of the coalition members, the right-wing pro-Russian Slovak National Party (SNP) and its leader Andrej Danko.

Last fall, during the negotiations over the formation of the coalition, the parties agreed that Fico would become prime minister and Pellegrini would become speaker.

After winning the presidential election, Pellegrini resigned his mandate, albeit not immediately. This created a dilemma: who should become the new speaker?

Mr. Pellegrini and his party emphasize that last year’s coalition agreements should remain in force. Accordingly, the new speaker should be a representative of the Voice Party and the current deputy speaker, Peter Žiga.

Danko, on the other hand, argues that Pellegrini’s victory in the presidential election requires a revision of last year’s agreements. And on this basis, he declares his ambitions to become speaker again.

Prime Minister Robert Fico significantly supports Danko’s ambitions. He has already stated that the coalition has two scenarios to choose from: either to appoint Danko as speaker or to have Žiga run the parliament for the next few years but as an acting speaker.

This, in turn, transformed the disagreement between the two coalition parties into a direct confrontation between Slovakia’s president and prime minister.

Pellegrini, who previously had a reputation as a politician quite close to Fico, has now begun to act differently. In recent days, the Slovak president has made a decision to show the coalition that he possesses sufficient power to make them take him seriously.

Meanwhile, Andrej Danko is facing problems within his own parliamentary faction. Some of his party’s MPs do not support Danko’s claim to the speaker’s post.

There is also speculation that up to three MPs from Petr Pellegrini’s Voice may consider leaving the coalition.

Thus, the coalition in the Slovak parliament, which has 79 seats with a minimum required majority of 76 votes, is shaky. At the same time, Robert Fico needs to carry out a large-scale project to cut budget expenditures.

At the above-mentioned conference, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called journalists from leading media outlets “bloodthirsty bastards” and threatened them with new restrictive measures, including the creation of a national media watchdog, according to Politico.

“Since the first day of the parliamentary elections, you have not left us alone for a minute. You went against us like bloodthirsty bastards,” Fico said. He singled out the main independent Slovak media outlets, Denník N, Denník Sme, and Aktuality.sk, which have been critical of his government and with which he has cut off all communication.

Tensions are rising, the coalition’s governability has significantly decreased, and the country needs urgent decisions in essential areas. We cannot rule out the possibility of its collapse and early elections.