Monitor: Takac: Coalition Has No Plans to Propose Candidate for House Vice-chair

(STVR, 'Sobotne dialogy', September 22) The coalition doesn't plan to propose a candidate for the vacated House Vice-chair post and will wait for a motion from Progressive Slovakia (PS) as the opposition party with the largest number of seats, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Richard Takac (Smer-SD) declared on Radio Slovakia's politics programme 'Sobotne dialogy' (Saturday Dialogues). "We're waiting for the proposal by the opposition, the largest opposition party Progressive Slovakia. We don't begrudge or deny the opposition its right to have its own parliamentary vice-chair," claimed Takac, who added that the coalition wouldn't have a problem if the opposition even agreed on a candidate from a different party. Opposition's KDH vice-chair Marian Caucik, Takac's opposite number on the show, agrees that the post belongs to PS and declared that KDH won't propose its own candidate. He also urged the coalition parties to finally elect the head of Parliament. "If the governing coalition is incapable of doing that, then join our votes for our candidate and we can have Frantisek Miklosko (KDH) as the Parliament Speaker," said Caucik. mf