(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Putin's next target: Slovakia (Part 3) Pro-Russia party attempts to form coalition [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-08 In the first part of this story, diarist Proponent previewed the upcoming Slovak election and warned that the election might be won by Robert Fico’s Smer (Direction), a party “totally in line with Russia, opposing any weapon deliveries, and … saying stuff like ‘war and fascism always came from the West, freedom and peace always from the East’ and that Slovakia needs to be freed from the ‘Euro-American occupation’.” After the election, I followed up with part 2 of the story, which noted that Smer had won a plurality with 24% of the vote, and it had 14 days to form a governing coalition. Negotiations are ongoing, and both Smer and the pro-western Progressive Slovakia party (PS), which finished second with 19% of the vote, have a chance to form the next government. The kingmaker will be the third-place finisher Hlas (Voice) of former prime minister Peter Pellegrini, which received 14.7% of the vote. Hlas can go into a coalition with Smer and the nationalist SNS party, or Hlas can destroy can destroy Putin’s and Fico’s dreams by joining with PS and two smaller, pro-western parties, KDH (Christian Democrats) and SaS. Neither Smer nor Hlas can form a majority coalition without Hlas. As for his kingmaker role, Pellegrini admitted, “I’m enjoying this a little bit. Before we didn’t smell too good to them, as if we were harmful, and now they want to negotiate with us. [But] I don’t take offense, I’m a pragmatist.” Hlas knows it has a strong hand, and it is playing it. It wants Pellegrini to be prime minister and his deputy to be Interior Minister. Fico reportedly has rejected this demand, as Fico insists on becoming prime minister himself, although he is willing to give Hlas the Interior Ministry, and Pellegrini would become speaker of parliament. PS is willing to make Pellegrini the prime minister but is balking at allowing a Hlas nominee to become Interior Minister, even though this may be the only way to stop Fico from taking power. Most observers are predicting a Smer-Hlas-SNS coalition. Hlas is a split off from Smer, and the parties have similar ideologies, except Hlas has a more pro-Ukraine, pro-western policy. Even if PS is able to convince Hlas to join an anti-Fico coalition, the leader of the conservative KDH said KDH may not want to go into a coalition with PS and Hlas. He fears PS and Hlas are “too liberal” for KDH’s taste. There is another pro-western party, Olano, that apparently is not even being considered as a coalition partner. Olano could in theory join with PS and Hlas to form a governing coalition, but its leader, former PM Igor Matovic, has said Olano would never join a coalition with Smer or Hlas, and in any event there is bad blood between Matovic and Sulik, the leader of SaS. Hopefully the anti-Putin parties will put aside their differences and do whatever it takes to block Fico. That does not appear likely at this time, but there is still hope. Fico has one week left to form his coalition. For the latest developments, check the election hotline of the newspaper Sme. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/8/2198207/-Putin-s-next-target-Slovakia-Part-3-Pro-Russia-party-attempts-to-form-coalition?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/