MPs around Huliak Won't Support Session and Don't Plan to Rejoin SNS, Either

Bratislava, November 26 (TASR) - The trio of Independent MPs operating in the extra-parliamentary National Coalition, Rudolf Huliak, Ivan Sevcik and Pavel Luptak, won't support the opening of the House session on Tuesday, Huliak himself has confirmed for TASR, adding that the MPs don't plan to return to the Slovak National Party (SNS) caucus, either. "We've agreed not to open the session, so we won't. And we don't have the slightest reason to rejoin the SNS caucus and return among people who don't even say hello to us," Huliak, who is the leader of the National Coalition, told TASR on Tuesday. At the same time, Huliak stressed that demanding that promises and especially agreements should be honoured isn't blackmail. "At the time when the new government with Robert Fico at the helm was being formed, I was accommodating and didn't insist on being appointed to the post of environment minister so that then president Zuzana Caputova didn't take the mandate to form the government away from [Premier Robert] Fico," said Huliak. SNS leader Andrej Danko at that time declared that he stood behind his nomination. Huliak also claims that an agreement was reached later according to which Tomas Taraba (an SNS nominee) would be the environment minister, "but only temporarily, until the new president was elected". Following the Coalition Council meeting on Monday (November 25), its members stated that the basis for negotiations on any form of participation by the three MPs around Rudolf Huliak in governing is for these MPs to return to the SNS caucus. The coalition leaders said that the coalition has a majority in Parliament that is needed to approve bills and personnel proposals. They stated that any activity other than one within the existing political structure may give rise to the suspicion of conduct giving rise to criminal liability. Fico during the ceremonial congress of his Smer-SD party at the weekend stated that he refuses to maintain the governing majority by giving in to political blackmail. ko/df