Slovak Saga

This weeks big news event (besides of course the Clinton concert...) was the interior politics of Slovakia. At least in the Eurozone and in Central Europe it definitely ruled the week.

In short: what happened was that the prime minister Iveta Radicova gambled on a vote and lost. The Slovak parliament, which is a unicameral body making it Slovakia's top legislative body held a vote on the EFSF commonly known as the packege to save Greece. Radicova is the (was) the prime minister of a four-party coalition cabinet out of which 3 parties decided to vote with a yes to the EFSF, the fourth one SaS decided to vote no, which is no suprise since they even campaigned with voting no in last years election. Topush this party to the furthest possible Radicova chose to gamble with her position and the coalition combining the vote for the EFSF with a vote of confidence. Now here comes the tricky part because the opposition would have been willing to vote for the EFSF, but they didn't want the coalition to survive the vote.

The result: the Radicova cabinet is over with. On Thursday the parliament voted yes for EFSF. Preliminary elections on the 10th of March 2012.

In the bigger picture in Central Europe of course we have to look at the possible outcomes of the election. Right now the top candidate seems to be former prime minister Robert Fico, which is not the best of news for the Hungarian minority living in Slovakia. In the past one year of the Radicova government the tensions between Hungary and Slovakia have lightened. It seems now a great loss that the Híd-Most party who was and advocate of Hungarian related issues will fall out of the government and if Fico comes back it is most likely that the situation of the Hungarian minority will worsen.