Today PM in waiting Robert Fico had his roundtable meeting with the five opposition parties, among other things to inform them of what parliamentary and parliamentary commission posts they would occupy.
As expected, Fico offered the two deputy speaker posts to the opposition, but that is already causing the first conflict as Bela Bugar is bidding for one of the posts, despite his party coming fourth in the elections behind Igor Matovic’s OLaNO party, which should be entitled to the post as it has 3 more seats in parliament than Bugar’s Most-hid party. Matovic feels, though, that a secret deal has already been struck between Bugar and Fico.
An unwritten rule to date has been for the opposition to head the parliamentary committees overseeing the intelligence service SIS and the National Security Bureau (NBU), and Fico doesn’t plan to break with tradition there. Regarding the other committees, this will depend on the nominations put forth by the parties.
The Christian democrats of KDH are wasting no time and have already raised the issue of abolishing the resilient Meciar’s amnesties, which prevented various public servants from being investigated or prosecuted in the kidnapping of former President Michal Kovac’s son in 1995.
Attempts to abolish the amnesties have all failed to date, including one last month, chiefly thanks to Robert Fico and his party for abstaining, so the KDH is probably hoping that it can include it in its negotiations, but probably in vain.
Robert Fico was officially entrusted with forming his stand-alone government today by President Ivan Gasparovic, with the selection of the various minister and other key posts expected to be know by the end of the week.