President Recommends Fico to Address Real Problems, Not Red Herring Ones

Bratislava, November 10 (TASR) - President Peter Pellegrini would recommend Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to focus his attention on problems faced by Slovakia and the EU, as Pellegrini doesn't think it's beneficial to open tangential topics designed as red herring to divert attention away from more urgent matters. Pellegrini said this on Sunday in response to Prime Minister Fico's statement that the political system in Slovakia is ripe for a change and that the electoral parliamentary threshold should be increased from 5 percent to 7. "I would recommend the Prime Minister to redirect his full attention to addressing real problems faced by this country as well as the entire Europe," said Pellegrini. The head of state voiced hope that Fico's red herring won't become the subject of political debates in the following weeks or months. In addition, Pellegrini doesn't find it right to move the electoral threshold up to 7 percent and believes that such changes should be the outcome of a consensus across the political spectrum instead. The President agrees with the notion that there is an excessive number of registered political parties in Slovakia, but he would rather change prerequisites a political party must meet in order to stay registered, as there are many zombie parties in existence. In his view, only the parties with proper organisational structure and activities should be allowed in the political democratic system, so as to prevent elections from becoming a joke or politicians to buy existing parties as well as giving them facetious names. "That is worthy of a debate," he added. mf