The Slovakian president has dismissed ministers of all political parties, replacing them with non-political experts who are deemed ‘non political.’ The new government includes the first ever ethnic Hungarian Prime Minister.
President Zuzana Čaputová has appointed a government of experts, not politicians, to run the country. She urged the Slovak public to remain open-minded and appreciate the sacrifices the new appointees are making by abandoning their non-political positions to enter the government.
The Fico administration collapsed in a mire of corruption and embezzlement, coming to a head with the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova.
A subsequent government under Prime Minister Igor Matovič was united by little other than their opposition to Fico and collapsed in the polls during the Pandemic when it emerged that they had secretly signed a deal with Russia to obtain the Sputnik V vaccine for Slovak citizens. A period of squabbling, incoherent coalitions has followed ever since.
Mrs Slovakia was born in Bratislava and was a lawyer by profession, working with Greenpeace before she entered politics. She joined the Progressive Slovakia Party in 2018.
Her government’s new appointees are, in her words, “only people who are not running in the next parliamentary elections.” They include Prime Minister Ľudovít Ódor, who had until then served as vice-governor of the National Bank of Slovakia and is of Hungarian descent. Slovak Hungarians are the largest minority in the country, numbering at around 9%.