Six Slovak opposition politicians, who have been holding a cake in parliament since Tuesday, have canceled their protest. The Social Democratic head of government Peter Pellegrini had previously criticized the six liberal MPs from a substitute desk brought into the conference room.
Pellegrini locates disrespect
He accused them of disrespect for Parliament as one of the most important pillars of democracy. The blockers „revealed their misguided idea of democracy,“ he said. During Pellegrini’s speech today, the protesters in Bratislava released the lectern. The right-wing populist President Andrej Danko subsequently warned that the protest action could in future serve as a model for extremists who wanted to destroy democracy.
According to the Slovak parliamentary order, the President of Parliament can exclude MPs from a meeting if they break the rules. However, he has no legal means of forcibly removing them from the room if they oppose his request.
Protest against decisions
The liberal MPs justified their protest against the media by saying that a planned and now actually started special session shortly before the new election on February 29 was illegal.
At the meeting, the government wanted, among other things, to approve an increase in child benefit and an additional payment for pensioners. The bourgeois opposition parties refused to do so because shortly before the election it decided spending that would have to be financed by the next government.
The cake was supposed to be a symbolic “wedding congratulation” for the “marriage” of the ruling Social Democrats with the right-wing extremist People’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), the protesters had declared. The special session was only possible thanks to the approval of the LSNS.
