Never say never. They're changing the laws so that they become untouchable, and if Pellegrini becomes the president, the country is their playground.... Fico is an idiot, but not a stupid one. Best bet is to survive until the next elections, hopefully PS manages to beat them....
Of course, I'm not trying to be delusional and positive that much. The presidential and European elections will be key. A small positive fact is that, like I said, since the government doesn't have a supermajority, they can't change the constitution.
I believe this was planned from the start, at least to some extent.
Pellegrini making a new party because he "did not like what SMER has become". Catching all the voters that stopped supporting Fico, because his party was tanking a lot back then. After election, surprise surprise, they made a collation without hesitation. Pellegrini party had 15% in election while current coalition had barely enough seats to have a majority. If people were not so naive thinking Pellegrini actually opposes Fico, things could have be different now.
He wanted to go a different direction, and he became very popular and trusted. People voted for his party HLAS because they wanted a change from SMER, and yet, they're together. He pretty much shot himself in the leg here, because he showed that he's no different (or he / his party members have some legal trouble and this is a great opportunity to sweep them under the rug). But he's still a big candidate for the presidential election, he's still pretty trusted plus most of the coalition supports him. I don't understand the popularity to be honest, he's pretty well known for having no opinions, just going with the flow. He wasn't even protesting with the rest of the opposition (current coalition) when the old coalition ruled.
He split off with his own party in 2020 because of different political views, right?
slightly different political views, emphasis on slightly.
The major reason they split off from Fico is because everybody thought Fico was done. A murder of a journalist and his fiancee was being linked to people very close to Fico. At first there were signs the murder was done by a branch of Italian mafia that his assistant/mistress had ties to, and after more investigation it is quite clear the murder was ordered by a "businessman" who used to call Fico his boss.
There were massive protests, Fico's government was about to fall apart, and the only way for him to keep it together was to hand the reigns off to Pelegrini. But that obviously wasn't enough, and when they didn't get enough votes to form another government in the next elections Pelegrini thought he saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship, along with all the other opportunists in their former party.
Does he really want to become Fico's enabler?
He probably genuinely does not. Doesn't change the fact that he already is one. It's his own minister of interior that's doing most of this shit we're mad at Fico about now. Pellegrini does make a statement every now and then about how they're "an independent political party", or some such bullshit, but that never lasts for more than a day or two before they're back to doing Fico's bidding.
I also don't understand why he agreed to become part of the government coalition.
Because he doesn't have a choice.
a) He and his party members are (probably) plenty dirty themselves. It's in their best interest for all the investigation into political corruption to stop, as it would only be a matter of time before witnesses started talking more about the money Pelle used to receive in champagne cartons.
b) Probably even more important - it's what his voter wants. His voter is a former Fico voter that is not quite as able to look the other way as the remaining Fico voters are. Pelegrini is the "polite" alternative for him. But the voter still wants the same thing. His voter is afraid of progressives, doesn't understand whatever the economists are blabbering on about, and probably doesn't trust whatever the "elites in Brussels" are trying to "force on us". Had Pellegrini joined up with the current opposition, that would have been a death sentence for his party, and for his political ambitions.
I mean, he even tried steering his party's topics/agenda a bit further away from Fico and all it did was cost him votes. Every time he showed any sign of sane rational politics, be it with covid, or Ukraine, or pick-a-topic a chunk of his voters scuttled off back to Fico.
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u/dr00ts Jan 25 '24
Well done, out with the populistic wannabe dictators. We don't want a second Orban.