Fico ends candidacy for seat on constitutional court

Slovak ex-prime minister Robert Fico has given up his ambitions of becoming a judge on the country's constitutional court. In a statement, he said that his political position made such a career move unhelpful. "In order for me as the chairman of the strongest political party to be able to actively take part in further negotiations and in order not to provoke suspicions that I'm pushing my own personal interests, I've decided not to run for the position," said the chairman of the political party Směr.

He said that the stability of the current governing coalition was too important to risk, though he criticized the Most-Hid party for pursuing its own interests at the expense of what was good for the country. He warned that if Most-Hid worked together with opposition parties to elect a constitutional court judge, he would consider it a violation of the coalition agreement that would endanger the further functioning of the government. Most-Hid is pushing for voting on constitutional judges to be public, rather than through secret ballots.