Less than seven months before early parliamentary elections in the country, Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Geger announced his withdrawal from the Ordinary People and Independents (OLaNO) movement, which won the elections two years ago.
This is reported by Denik.
"I have my own vision of politics. I know that if I want to implement it, I have to go my own way," Geger wrote on his Facebook page, without providing further information about his future work.
According to media reports, Minister of Defense Yaroslav Nagy will also leave the political movement. Both politicians have been hinting at their exit for several weeks.
Some government politicians have previously said that Gäger should remain at the head of the government even if he leaves OLaNO.
A former member of the OLaNO presidium, Geger became prime minister two years ago after a crisis in the government coalition, which led to the resignation of the then head of government, Ihor Matovych. Last December, after another coalition crisis and the exit of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party from the government, the lower house of the parliament expressed no confidence in the minority government of Geger, and the cabinet remained in office with limited powers only at the behest of President Zuzana Chaputova.
After the fall of the government, Matovych lost his position as finance minister, which was part of Geger's agreement with SaS to support, for example, the state budget for this year. Prior to that, Geger repeatedly stood up for Matovych, even when SaS, still the ruling party, unsuccessfully demanded Matovych's resignation from the Cabinet of Ministers.
With 25% of the vote, OLaNO won the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia in a landslide. However, later the popularity of the movement and Matovych himself began to decline. Now OLaNO's sympathy is measured in single digits, and Matovych himself is included in the rating of the least popular politicians in the country.
The most popular parties are "Voice - Social Democracy" (Hlas-SD) of ex-Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and "Direction - Social Democracy" (Smér-SD) of former Prime Minister Robert Fizo. Pellegrini founded Hlas-SD in 2020 after leaving Smer-SD.