Although Igor Matovič expressed his willingness to leave the government – also together with Richard Sulík. He made his departure conditional on content demands – which are legitimate and many of them correct – but he presented them in a form that SaS will probably not be able to accept. She has so far vetoed some of them within the coalition, plus OĽaNO demands that Matovič leave only after all these demands are approved as laws, moreover approved by all SaS deputies. Matovič would thus be the Minister of Finance for a few more months, while even then the dispute would flare up peacefully again as to whether SaS really complied with everything and whether Matovič can therefore resign. If Richard Sulík were to comply with these demands today or by the end of the week and withdraw his resignation and that of his ministers, it would be the same as if Belgrade had accepted all seven demands of Vienna in July 1914. SaS would deny herself, which she is clearly not going to do. Now it is only questionable to what extent OĽaNO’s demands are the first shot with the aim of driving Sulík into a corner for a few days, but creating space for discussion – at least Ján Budaj emphasized today that they do not think of those demands as a dictate, but rather a proposal to overcome “misunderstandings and tensions”. But if Matovič himself understands these demands as a red line, otherwise he will not resign, then the space for discussion has already closed. The immaturity of the rulers of change Here again we get to the heart of not only this, but all the crises that have accompanied the unfortunate coalition of four since its inception. The heated personal dispute between Matovič and Sulík began already in the first days after the election triumph. At the time, Matovič, while cooking dumplings at Sulík’s, promised the leader of SaS that, despite the modest electoral gain, he would give him the post of finance minister. Sulík counted on that until OĽaNO began to insist that this post belongs to the winning movement. Suddenly, it became an extremely sharp conflict, for a while it even looked like the new government would be formed without the SaS. Since then, no major political dispute between Matovič and Sulík has been resolved normally and discreetly behind closed doors, but as a circus act with fireworks that exhausted the country and basically buried confidence in the leaders of change already at the end of 2020. Once, Sulík indiscriminately laughed at a government measure banning travel between districts (first wave of the pandemic), then Matovič argued with Sulík for weeks about who couldn’t manage to buy tests, until Matovič called him an idiot while half-crying (second wave of the pandemic). In the same way, this summer government crisis testifies to the political immaturity of the coalition leaders – they do not know how to tactic behind the scenes in the name of reaching an effective compromise, but they conduct political disputes as a psychological war. Let’s take the essence of this summer crisis. It started with the failure of the SaS, which in the spring blocked several anti-crisis proposals of the coalition partners, but was unable to veto Matovič’s family mega package and did not force the finance minister to make concessions (for example, to delete the ring tax, which all parties had doubts about). The later excuses that the package was not vetoed because Matovič himself declared in some press release (we all had to painstakingly search in the archives when exactly and if at all) that it could not be vetoed were childish. It is true that, as in March 2021, Matovič himself contributed to Sulík’s ultimatum with his behavior – instead of being quietly happy that the members of the ĽSNS also voted for his package, he publicly praised the parliamentary leader of Kotlebov, thereby frightening his own members. And then, on the day of his triumph, the breaking of the president’s veto, he put all his energy into attacking Sulík for allegedly colluding with fascists from the Republic when voting against the package. Of course, Sulík also addressed a similar unfair attack to Matovič, when shortly before he declared that OĽaNO was no longer an anti-corruption movement, only because two female MPs did not vote for the extradition of Robert Fico to be prosecuted. For a long time, coalition cooperation has thus degenerated into a series of malicious acts between representatives of OĽaNO and SaS. Childish revenge At the beginning of this summer, what changed was that Sulík – driven into a holy fight for the overthrow of Matovič by several media – stopped being afraid of the label of the destroyer of the government and came after more than a year with another ultimatum. However, the demand that the leader of the strongest movement should be asked to leave the government altogether after losing the prime minister’s post is inappropriate. SaS knew very well that Matovič could not accept it, just as Sulík could not accept OĽaNO’s morning ultimatum today. While during the crisis in March 2021 SaS gave Matovič an ultimatum of ten days, now it was an almost endless two months. And this is where we come to the immaturity and incompetence of OĽaNO – the narrow leadership of the movement constantly met in the summer and discussed various scenarios for solving the crisis, and finally, exactly on the day of the resignation of the SaS ministers, they presented ten demands, the fulfillment of which is to be extended for weeks and months. So let’s take a closer look at the ten requirements. They are legitimate in themselves, except for the obligation according to which MPs and ministers for SaS are not to submit proposals with an impact on public finances without proposing resources that will ensure their financial coverage. Not only is the demand itself intolerable, it would be downright absurd if such a commitment applied only to one party, and not to all members of the coalition. The political problem, however, is that several of these demands cross the red lines of the SaS, and the effort to enforce them was from the Sulíkov’s declared reason for the departure of Igor Matovič from the ministerial position. However, the tone, form and timing of these demands are particularly telling. None of this suggests that they could serve as a starting point for an agreement. Rather, it seems as if it was just another piece of ammunition in the fight over whose hands Black Peter should ultimately remain in this game. It is not a signal to the public that the crisis is finally heading towards a successful resolution, but childish revenge against Sulík for the ultimatum of 6. July. This list is thus another proof of how dominant Igor Matovič is in his movement. There is nothing from Eduard Heger or anyone else from OĽaNO about this operation with demands. It bears Matovič’s handwriting from beginning to end. It is easy to imagine that they were formulated in the last hours – by holidaymakers from Spain. Finally, the most concise summary of these demands was written today on Facebook by Igor Matovič himself in one sentence: “Today it will be shown who cares about Slovakia and who cares about their Ego.” However, this once again confirms the mistake of Richard Sulík, but also of many commentators who think , that the transfer of Igor Matovič from the Ministry of Finance to the Parliament would qualitatively change the functioning of the government coalition for the better. No, Matovič would remain a key figure in OĽaNO, he would attend coalition councils and, as a member of parliament, he would be able to submit laws. His personal conflict with Richard Sulík, which is paralyzing this government to a large extent, would not subside, it would only move to a new field where the OĽaNO leader would feel even more humiliated and hungry for revenge after another forced resignation. Even after today, it is quite clear that Eduard Heger is not only unable to stop Matovič in his style of doing politics, but also to significantly correct him. But the truth is that Slovakia still has no better alternative than Heger’s government, which will be able to make serious decisions even during this winter. At the moment, there are three scenarios on the table. The ideal for preserving the four-party coalition would be if next week the leaders of OĽaNO and SaS shut down for a few days, stop bothering the public with press releases and Facebook statuses, and negotiate a new agreement. SaS could swallow the bitter pill and, for example, guarantee support for a family package without ring fees. Matovič would also have to swallow a bitter pill and submit a quick resignation – on the basis of a new political agreement, where OĽaNO would have to make concessions on some demands. The problem is that OĽaNO greatly narrowed the space for an agreement by publishing all the demands instead of discussing them discreetly in the past weeks – instead, Prime Minister Heger presented smiling proposals on how to resolve disputes within the coalition, which Jaroslav Naď also compared to kindergarten. But maybe after the wasted weeks at the beginning of September, something will break and OĽaNO and SaS will find a breakthrough – which would amount to a small miracle after today. The second scenario is the definitive departure of SaS from the coalition and the beginning of the minority government of Eduard Heger. We wrote about the risks of this project this morning. And then there is the third scenario: after all, none of the above will happen, because in the next few days Boris Kollár will slam the table and declare that he has had enough of all this. The We Are Family boss is a quiet but decisive political player on the scene at the moment. He has what it takes to force Igor Matovič to resign from his ministerial position behind the scenes, but he also holds the key to the functioning of a potential minority government. If he doesn’t want to go into it and says that he too wants early elections in view of the devastating conflict between Matovič and Sulík, who buried the coalition, he will be painted. whether he resigns or not, it can only happen so quickly as a scrap of paper.