BRATISLAVA, November 28, (WEBNOVINY) — Leader of the non-parliamentary Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) Jozsef Berenyi has acknowledged the decision of the ruling coalition party MOST-HID to run in the early elections separately.
“It seems that the efforts for an agreement with SMK have not been honest since the beginning,” the chairman complained and added that the two parties would now compete for the same voters in southern Slovakia. SMK wants appropriate representation of ethnic Hungarians in the parliament, which means at least 15 mandates. At the times of a strong SMK, the party had twenty lawmakers. MOST-HID garnered 14 mandates in the previous elections, eight of them were ethnic Hungarians. The SMK Republican Council will decide on the shape of its slate on Saturday. The order of candidates remains open, according to Berenyi. The SMK presidium will assess the nominations approved by party’s district organizations and suggest the key to compile the candidate list on Friday.
SMK has recently turned down negotiations with MOST-HID. Berenyi at that time complained that the offer of MOST-HID was like an ultimatum; it focused exclusively on nominating SMK members on MOST-HID candidate list and allegedly did not allow talks of any other ways of cooperation.
SITA