Slovakian vaccine row intensifies as minister resigns

Slovakia’s economy minister said on Monday that he would step down and called on prime minister Igor Matovic to do the same, in a bid to defuse a bitter political feud that has gridlocked the ruling coalition.

The four-party coalition has been racked by infighting since Matovic announced a deal earlier this month to buy 2m doses of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine. The treatment has not been approved by Europe’s medicines watchdog and the deal was done without the agreement of two of the prime minister’s coalition partners.

The move brought to a head months of simmering tensions between Matovic and other members of the government. They have clashed over everything from his leadership style to his management of the pandemic, which has hit Slovakia particularly hard since the autumn.

Following an ultimatum from two of his coalition partners, the pro-business Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS), and the centre-right For the People, Matovic said on Sunday that he was prepared to resign. But he said he would only do so if certain conditions were met, including that Richard Sulik, Slovakia’s economy minister and the head of SaS, resigned as well.

On Monday, Sulik said he would do so to allow a government reshuffle to resolve the crisis. However, he also hit out at Matovic for the conditions he had attached to his departure, which also included SaS giving up a ministry.

“The driving force behind Igor Matovic’s demands is apparently personal revenge. Despite this, I am fulfilling what I promised and I am resigning from the post of minister of economy,” Sulik wrote on Facebook.

“I do this because the situation in the Slovak government needs to be addressed quickly. I believe that this step of mine will contribute to the government’s functioning and reconstruction of government. I believe that Igor Matovic will fulfil his part of the agreement and resign.”

A spokesman for Matovic’s party, called Ordinary People, said on Monday that he would invite Sulik to discuss the reshuffling of the government in the coming days, according to the Slovak website, Dennik N.

Matovic came to power after Ordinary People, which ran on an anti-corruption platform, won parliamentary elections last year. The breakthrough was powered by popular anger at Slovakia’s political and business elites in the wake of the murder of a young investigative journalist and his fiancée in 2018.

However, the coalition that Matovic built with SaS, For the People, and the rightwing populist grouping We are Family has been beset with personality clashes. Relations between Matovic and Sulik have been particularly strained.

The government has also come under concentrated fire for its failure to get to grips with the pandemic. A recent poll for the state broadcaster RTVS found that 82 per cent of respondents wanted Matovic to resign, and that 83 per cent were dissatisfied with the government.

Although the country came through the first wave of the pandemic relatively unscathed, case numbers have soared since last autumn, with the country recording some of the worst death rates per capita in the world in recent weeks. In total Slovakia, which has a population of 5.5m, has recorded 349,270 coronavirus cases, and 9104 deaths.