Slovak political scene in turmoil

The collapse of the Slovak government may have saved the eurozone bailout fund, but it has left a growing domestic political crisis in its wake.

President Ivan Gašparovič seems unsure whether or not to dismiss the current government of Prime Minister Iveta Radičová and allow her to remain in office until new elections are held in March. Soon after Radičová's government went down in a no-confidence vote tied to the ill-fated first parliamentary vote to expand the powers of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), Gašparovič said he planned to replace the current Cabinet with a caretaker government until the election. But after meeting with several political leaders, including former Prime Minister and opposition Smer party chief Robert Fico, the president said Oct. 17 he was leaning toward keeping Radičová's government intact until a replacement is elected.

In the meeting with Fico, considered the most powerful Slovak politician and who is thought to have engineered the toppling of Radičová's government, the Smer chief told Gašparovič his party would not support any new government constructed from any of the four current ruling coalition parties. Fico also said he would not support a caretaker government and said he preferred Radičová's Cabinet to continue ruling until the March elections.

"Such a government would not have to stand in front of Parliament and ask for confidence in an agreement with the government's new program statement," Fico told journalists Oct. 17.

Gašparovič is expected to hold another meeting with party leaders Oct. 20 in an attempt to work out a final arrangement. Thus far, Radičová has not been invited to the intraparty meetings with the president, and her Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) is being represented by party Chairman Mikuláš Dzurinda.

The wheels for all of the week's political maneuverings were set in motion by the refusal of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, a coalition partner of SDKU, to support the EFSF vote. SaS Chairman Richard Sulík said for weeks leading up to the Oct. 11 vote that his party would not support a measure that required Slovakia, the 17-country eurozone's second-poorest member, to pay additional funds to bail out larger, Western economies. Slovakia eventually passed the measure, which increased the fund to about $590 billion and raised the amount Slovakia would pay into the fund from about $7 billion to roughly $10 billion, but not until Radičová's government fell in the no-confidence vote.

Fico, who had originally said Smer would not support the bailout unless all four coalition parties agreed to vote for it, eventually pledged his party's support of the measure in exchange for an agreement to hold new elections. Analysts and media in Bratislava say Fico played his hand perfectly to position himself and Smer to re-enter government.

"Slovakia did vote for the bailout, but with the help of Smer boss Robert Fico," said a recent editorial in The Slovak Spectator. "What is the price for Fico's helping hand? The bill has already been delivered: early elections in March 2012 … and now the doors are wide open for him to return to government."

According to Bratislava-based polling firm Polis Slovakia, the popularity of Fico and his Smer party have risen considerably since the collapse of the government. Numbers released Oct. 17 indicated that Smer could form a government alone if elections were held today. According to the poll, 45.5 percent of decided voters would support Smer, which would translate into 83 seats in the 150-seat Parliament.

"Voters' preference for Smer has increased since the previous poll, and this is definitely thanks to the latest developments," said Ján Baránek, a pollster for Polis Slovakia.

Jack Buehrer can be reached at
jbuehrer@praguepost.com