President Pellegrini Doesn't Expect No-confidence Motion in Gov't to Succeed

Bratislava, January 14 (TASR) - President Peter Pellegrini finds the move to submit a no-confidence motion in the government by the opposition legitimate, although he doesn't expect the opposition to accomplish the ouster successfully at an upcoming special emergency House session. Pellegrini told this to journalists during his official visit to Italy. "I don't expect the state of affairs in Parliament to develop in such way so as to enable the toppling of the incumbent government during the vote. Because of this, quite frankly, as a person who's spent more than two decades in politics and spent several years in Parliament, both in the opposition and coalition, I'm not preparing any contingency plan for this, as I don't expect to need any after the vote takes place," he said. Pellegrini believes that it's legitimate for the opposition to collect signatures to initiate a special emergency House session on the no-confidence motion in the Cabinet, as this constitutes a standard parliamentary opposition work. "It's what the current governing coalition was doing as well when it used to be in the opposition and now the present opposition is doing it with respect to the governing coalition," claimed the head of state. However, he noticed that the opposition had found it difficult to arrive at a consensus. "It took several days, if not weeks, for the unity across the entire opposition political spectrum to be found, in order to enable the convening of this session," he pointed out. mf/mcs