- Tibor Gašpar does not understand why Danko is asking for the replacement of his own nominee Tomáš Taraba.
- Andrej Danko repeatedly attacks Robert Fico and creates public crises.
- According to Gašpar, the coalition has 78 relatively certain parliamentary votes.
- Smer is considering supporting Mazurek for the post of head of the Prešov Region.
- In the event of Žilink’s departure, the government can open the election of a new Prosecutor General.
Smer-SD is trying to maintain stable governance despite all the problems. SNS head Andrej Danko creates public crises and insults Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD), the party does not respond to Danko’s personal attacks. The deputy speaker of the parliament said this in the STVR discussion program Sobotné dialogy Tibor Gašpar (Smer-SD). He does not understand Danko’s reservations towards the Minister of the Environment Tomáš Tarab (nom. SNS).
The vice-chairman of the opposition SaS, Marián Viskupič, agrees that Danko is an unstable element. At the same time, he repeated that SaS will go to the parliamentary elections independently and does not want to be part of a broad pre-election coalition.
“The fact that Mr. Danko creates public crises and speaks in the public space such words as he said now is a harsh insult to Robert Fico, when you look at it from the opposite side, it is certainly not happening. Robert Fico tries not to constantly react to such attacks of a personal nature, and so does the party.” stated Gaspar to the recent public statements of Danko, who asked the prime minister to replace Tarabu as part of the government’s reconstruction. Gašpar does not understand Danko, who nominated Taraba for the post of minister, so he could talk to him about the affairs of the environmental department at any time.
According to Gašpar, Smer-SD operates in the government as promised. “He is steadily trying to maintain governance despite all the problems that came with the disintegration of the SNS parliamentary club. And if anyone is bringing to the public the style of governance that we saw here in 2023, it is Andrej Danko.” he concluded that the coalition has 78 votes anyway and if Taraba were to enter parliament, it could change the whole situation.
Gašpar considers the possible candidacy of Tarab for Smer-SD in the parliamentary elections to be a premature question. “Minister Taraba himself said that he has not discussed such a possibility with Smer yet. Everything is possible in politics, but at this moment it is not on the table at all,” he clarified. Viskupič criticizes the government for dealing with its functions and has not yet presented pro-growth measures. Gašpar responded that the Slovak economy is related to the fact that the EU economy is falling. He reproached Viskupič that the previous government coalition subverted public finances.
Gašpar expects that in 2027 the government will fight the “economic headwind” in such a way that people in the social standard will not feel it. He added that the March deadline for the announcement of the measures was only a working one. “Part of the measures will be linked to the state budget, which will probably be approved at the September meeting, so we must have time to set the measures even during the creation of the budget,” said Gašpar.
Smer-SD will probably support the re-candidacy of Branislav Becík in the autumn municipal elections (Voice-SD) for the head of the Nitra self-governing region. At the same time, Gašpar confirmed that the candidacy of Marek Illéš for mayor of Nitra is also in play. He also added that Smer-SD is ready to support the candidacy of MEP Milan Mazurek (Republic) for the chairman of the Prešov self-governing region, but first we need to agree on the principles of cooperation. So far, he feels that the Republic is not interested in mutual agreements in supporting candidates.
According to Gašpar, if Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka decides not to continue in office due to his health, this issue will be resolved. “If he has already made a public statement that he is still evaluating it or the next development of his health will show, then we will deal with the question of whether the prosecutor’s office can be functional without the general prosecutor at the head and the deputy general prosecutor managing it until the proper date, which would come after the elections in 2027. But that time is so far away that I think there would probably be a situation where it would be appropriate to open the question of an election the new general prosecutor,” he declared. According to Viskupič, the new chief of prosecutors should be decided by the next government.
