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Kalinak to Face No-confidence Motion on Friday, Opposition Protests
Tuesday 26 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 26 (TASR) - An extraordinary parliamentary session with a no-confidence motion against Interior Minister Robert Kalinak the only item on the agenda will begin on Friday at 2 p.m., Parliamentary Vice-chairman Miroslav Ciz announced on Tuesday, following a gremium of MPs.
According to him, the date and time was set in view of the fact that the Opposition submitted its request to summon the session when a Council of Europe (CoE) parliamentary session was coming up and when Parliamentary Chairman Pavol Paska had an official visit to Vietnam scheduled. As MPs are due to return from the CoE meeting on Friday 1 p.m., the extraordinary session will begin an hour later.
"We sense manipulation behind this," said chairman of the opposition Christian Democrat (KDH) caucus Pavol Hrusovsky, who is afraid that coalition lawmakers will largely ignore the extraordinary session. It could happen that the House will be unable to vote after the debate, he said. "The session could have been summoned on any day this week. The Constitution speaks not only about an obligation to call a session within seven days, but also that it should actually take place. I expect coalition MPs to at least fulfil their obligation to come and debate," added Hrusovsky.
According to another Parliamentary Vice-chairman Milan Hort (SDKU-DS), it's likely that only opposition MPs will hold a debate at the extraordinary session, and, due to low participation, the vote will have to be postponed until the regular session that is scheduled to begin next Tuesday.
The Opposition initiated the dismissal attempt in response to an incident on January 2 in which an airport security exercise went awry and a sample of explosives was sent to Dublin in the luggage of an unwitting Slovak traveller. Kalinak rejected the Opposition's calls to resign, describing the case as a fatal mistake by one individual police officer and not a failure of the system.
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