The Slovak parliament decided on Tuesday, in a secret vote, to remove him from the position of deputy speaker of parliament. Michal Shimskatrepresentative of the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS). N's diary According to his report, such a decision had never been seen before in modern Slovak history, so the case caused a huge uproar in Slovak public life.
In practice, the decision was taken by a coalition of the three ruling parties, Smir, Halas and the National Socialist Party. Representatives of the opposition parties did not take part in the vote, while 77 out of 79 members of the government coalition took part. In the poll, 76 people voted to replace Shemika, there were no abstentions and no votes, and one vote was invalid.
According to normal procedure, the Slovak Parliament is chaired by five people. After the 2023 elections, one of them will become Peter PellegriniWho was elected speaker of parliament, but soon left office because he was appointed head of state. No one has replaced him since, and parliament has now removed an opposition vice president from office. What really made this move so angry is that the three remaining vice presidents are all government representatives: Tibor Gaspar And the direction, Andre Danko From A to Z SNS, Peter seal He won the seat of Alwan Halas in the elections. The latter has now also been given the powers of the Speaker of Parliament temporarily.
The ruling parties justified the replacement of Simicka by saying that, in their opinion, there was a “risk of conflict of interest”, since two civic associations and a foundation in which members of Michal Simicka's family were active received state support. The ruling parties also said they did not want to deprive the opposition of its right to hold the position of deputy speaker of parliament, and Smer's spokesman has already indicated that the Socialist Party, as the largest opposition party, could propose a new candidate for the position. On the other hand, the opposition parties indicated last week that they would not take advantage of such an opportunity. “Meetings should only take place in groups of three people,” he said. Martin DubisiPS faction leader.
