The 7th Congress of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia was held in Kosice during this weekend. "Surprisingly", Vladimir Meciar was elected for the leader of HZDS again. The director of the Governmental Office Milan Topoli has been elected to the post of the administrative vice-chair of HZDS on the place of the former vice-chair Arpad Matejka, who recently decided to leave HZDS. The place of Olga Keltosova, the current Ambassador to UN won't be occupied. Two vice-chairs Sergej Kozlik and Augustin Marian Huska remained on their places.
The Slovak Television, which is already well-known as the tool of the governmental coalition, really showed its face on Saturday. The whole day, there were direct entries from Kosice, and one of the main evening programs was one-hour-speech of the leader of HZDS Vladimir Meciar. Apart of other, he said also, that HZDS will do everything so that Slovakia becomes one of the most developed countries in the world by 2010. HZDS did not discuss on its list of candidates for the elections, and will do so on another smaller congress.
The Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) had its congress in Zvolen. They prepared the pre-electoral campaign and also accepted their list of candidates in the autumn parliamentarian elections. Although Pavol Kanis - "the shadow prime minister of SDL" planned to become the electoral leader of SDL, the delegates of SDL accepted the current leader Jozef Migas who will be at the first place in the case the new electoral law is accepted. Also, SDL refused any form of cooperation with HZDS before or after the elections.
According to the vice-chair of the Christian-Democratic Movement Milan Hort, the government spent over 30 billion SKK (nearly 1 billion USD) to the reformation of the state administration. Nevertheless, the reformation was not prospering for the local governments, and only improved the influence of the state power of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).
Viktor Niznansky (Slovak Democratic Coalition) said, that although the government promised to decrease the number of clerks in the state administration, it's always increasing and there are currently 43,000 employees (Slovakia has about 5.3 million inhabitants). He would prefer to make the state itself control only the global resorts, such as defense, juridical power or currency politics, and to let most issues on the local governments.
The Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar went to Vienna (capital of Austria) today. He should meet his Austrian partner Viktor Klima. They should discuss mainly about the Mochovce nuclear power plant. The activists of Greenpeace are widely protesting against this new nuclear center in Slovakia.
The referendum in a central-Slovakian town Rimavska Sobota was held on Friday. The citizens had to give their opinion to the construction of a prison in the center of this town. However, as only about 15% of voters participated, the referendum was not valid, and the statement of the local government NO to the prison, is currently valid.
According to the opinion poll by the Institute for Public Affairs, there are about 66% of citizens supporting the activity for direct presidential elections, 47% of citizens support the activity against the novelization of the electoral law and "only" about 36% of the citizens support the activity for the constitutional law that would allow the chairman of the parliament to recall and name ministers of the government.
According to the Interior Ministry, there are currently 90 political subjects registered in Slovakia, of which 68 parties and 22 movements. The most recently registered (15 April) is the Free Party of Slovakia (Slobodna Strana Slovenska - SSS).
The vice-chair of the National Council and HZDS Augustin Marian Huska leads the delegation of a group of deputies of the Slovak parliament to the Great Britain. He emphasized how important it was to have good relations with this country, because it's the current chair country in the European Union. The deputies will visit the British parliament.
Pavol Delinga, the leader of a small party called New Agrarian Party challenged the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) to support the presidential candidate of HZDS (Movement for a Democratic Slovakia) Milan Secansky. Well, SDL already has its own candidate in the third round, so there's no reason to support the deputy for HZDS.
On Sunday, it was the 12th anniversary of the worst catastrophe of peaceful utilization of nuclear power, of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Chernobyl, situated near the capital of Ukraine Kiev, is only 600 km from the Eastern-Slovakia border. Until now, there were about 125 thousand casualties and there are still quite many sick new-born children.
The policemen warn the citizens from participating in the so-called "pyramidal games" where they are asked to pay an amount of money which is later given back twice, but it's necessary to find two another "players". After a short time, there are too many players, and an individual even does not get back his money... There are currently quite many people playing such games in Eastern Slovakia...
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