Huliak Calls on Coalition to Settle Its Disputes and Elect House Chair (2)

Bratislava, March 26 (TASR) - Tourism and Sport Minister Rudolf Huliak (Independent) has called on the coalition to elect the new House chair and settle the disputes between its parties, confirming that the Independents from the National Coalition will vote for coalition candidate Richard Rasi (Voice-SD), TASR learnt on Wednesday. Speaking at a press conference, Huliak added that the coalition Slovak National Party (SNS) is conducting its politics at the government's expense. "I'm worried that we'll face problems on a daily basis with any sort of bill, but that's up to [SNS chair] Mr. Andrej Danko, whether he wishes to become a political corpse and embrace this path or, simply put, he'll really start respecting and honouring the interests of this government, the coalition agreement and support for the government manifesto," said Huliak. Meanwhile, National Coalition vice-chair and MP Roman Malatinec (Independent) commented on the decision to cancel a children's folklore festival in Zvolen in light of its uncertain financing under the Art Support Fund (FPU). He declared that state-owned lottery company Tipos, which comes under the Tourism and Sport Ministry's remit, can allocate €15,000 for the festival if need be. Malatinec added that he's in touch with Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova (SNS nominee) to discuss the running of FPU with her. Earlier on Wednesday, the junior coalition SNS party stated that it's against the stationing of soldiers in Latvia as part of the multi-national NATO brigade because it doesn't want to have "Slovak soldiers on Russia's borders". SNS also had a problem with a bill sponsored by the Defence Ministry that would form a Gendarmerie Corps, but both bills were passed in Parliament on Wednesday without SNS's approval. mf/df