Deputy Prime Minister for the Recovery Plan and the Knowledge Economy Peter Kmec (Hlas-SD) offered his resignation and the chairman of the Hlas-SD party Matúš Šutaj Eštok accepted it. The resignation had already been decided and was to be announced on Saturday (November 15) at a press conference. In response to the published decision of the Prime Minister to ask President Petr Pellegrini to dismiss Kmec, the chairman of Hlasu-SD stated this on the social network on Friday evening.
“The voice acted without the need for a public gesture by the Prime Minister, which I believe was not related to the events in Poprad. The decision was made to resign. We consider the same approach to be the norm and assume that it will be applied by all members of the government, including the Prime Minister’s ministers,” pointed out Šutaj Eštok. According to him, public interest must be superior to functions.
According to the head of Hlasu-SD, taking personal responsibility even when doubts arise requires character and deserves respect. “Such a step is not frequent in our politics,” he added.
According to Šutaj Eštok, they told themselves in the party that they would be different from their predecessors, and the resignation of Petr Kmec is concrete proof that they are keeping their promise to the public. According to him, political culture is not based on big words, but on actions.
The chairman of Hlasu-SD recalled that on Thursday (November 13) he gave the order to immediately suspend the calls and to start a thorough audit of the entire process. No further steps should be taken until all circumstances are explained and verified.
The dismissal of Kmec is the result of the controversial results of subsidy calls for research and development of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Several opposition parties announced on Friday that they are filing criminal charges. The criminal complaint of the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) is targeted, for example on suspicion of committing the criminal offense of abuse of authority of a public official, the criminal offense of accepting a bribe and the criminal offense of bribery by an unknown offender or offenders.
