Slovakia’s New Technocratic PM And ‘Cabinet of Experts’ Face Off Against Populists

The president decided to name a government of experts after it surfaced that a company co-owned by the agriculture minister, Samuel Vlčan, was awarded a 1.4-million-euro subsidy from the Environment Ministry. Instead of forsaking the money, which is still pending, Vlčan quit the caretaker government led by Eduard Heger, who admitted on live television hours later that Slovakia was in a state of chaos. This was followed by the resignation of another minister, Foreign Minister Rastislav Káčer. Because the Heger cabinet was interim, the departing ministers could have been replaced by other ministers including Heger himself, yet he was already in charge of two other ministries following the earlier removal of the health and finance ministers.

After Čaputová ruled out Heger's proposals on how to tackle the government crisis, Heger and his cabinet had little option but to resign.

Following its appointment in December, Heger's cabinet was warned by the president that she would replace it with a technocratic government in the event of a serious blunder. She took that step on May 15 with less than five months to go until the early parliamentary election. Despite the adoption of several major reforms, including on education and national parks, the president underlined that the biggest problem with the Heger-led government coalition was the constant internal feuding over the past three years, amid a series of crises triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

For Čaputová, it was crucial to form a technocratic government that would "calm a divided and tired society", and "lead the country to a fair parliamentary election".

However, the president also expects Ódor's cabinet to continue helping vulnerable groups affected by high...

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