What Slovakia is writing about: Pellegrini refuses to appoint Kuffa and will likewise not appoint Kažimír. The dispute is heading to the Constitutional Court, while Fico and Babiš unveil a statue in Prague

President Peter Pellegrini has refused to appoint Filip Kuffa as minister of the environment and referred the dispute over his succession to the Constitutional Court — now, applying the same standard, he is also refusing to appoint Peter Kažimír to a second term as governor of the National Bank of Slovakia. Denník N ↗ Constitutional lawyers disagree on whether the president acted correctly, and the opposition is responding in different ways — from warnings about a dangerous precedent to a call for SNS to withdraw its nominee itself. Railway dispatchers and controllers have also joined the strike alert. SME ↗

The Kuffa dispute reaches as far as the National Bank

Filip Kuffa, the SNS nominee for environment minister, remains only a state secretary. The president is refusing to appoint him while police investigate him over logging in Muránska planina National Park, although Kuffa has not yet been charged. Prime Minister Robert Fico is temporarily heading the ministry; at the same time, the president has turned to the Constitutional Court to decide whether he may reject a proposal for a minister or is merely a “postman” whose role is only to confirm the prime minister's signature. In its Newsfilter section, Denník N points out that Pellegrini invoked consistency: he is taking the same approach with Governor Kažimír, who was convicted of corruption in a non-final ruling and whom he will not appoint to a second term until a final judgment. Denník N ↗

Constitutional lawyers disagree on the president's procedure. Vincent Bujňák considers it understandable, but warns that Pellegrini's position is weaker than in Kiska's and Čaputová's previous refusals, because the government is already fully formed and this concerns only one ministry. Radoslav Procházka, by contrast, criticizes the procedure for lacking procedural logic — in his view, the person whose nominee was rejected, not the president himself, should turn to the court. Political scientist Miroslav Řádek sees it as a delaying tactic and a message to Danko to find another candidate. STVR ↗

The opposition is responding in different ways. SaS warns that a broader interpretation of presidential powers could create a dangerous precedent, while Progressive Slovakia is calling on SNS to withdraw Kuffa's nomination and propose another candidate. Pravda ↗

The statue in Prague: one event, two versions

On Tuesday, Fico and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš unveiled a bronze statue called Between Us in the garden of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. The Slovak embassy donated it to the Czech government office on the eve of the 108th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. Aktuality.sk provided the most details: the governments will hold their next joint meeting in Bratislava in two weeks, and Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár visited Prague last Friday. Aktuality.sk ↗ Hospodárske noviny described the event simply as a “confirmation of above-standard relations.” Hospodárske noviny ↗

Pravda put a different detail in its headline — according to the paper, protesters whistled during the unveiling and the Soviet song Katyusha was played. Babiš reportedly announced during the ceremony that the next joint meeting of the Czech and Slovak governments would take place on 10 November. Pravda ↗ TA3 chose a third angle, describing it as Fico's trip to see Babiš. TA3 ↗ The two prime ministers revived joint government meetings after Babiš's cabinet took office — they had been suspended by the previous government of Petr Fiala because of differing positions on the war in Ukraine.

The elections are over, but the debate over their meaning continues

Boris Zala argues in a commentary for Aktuality.sk that the result is a fiasco for Republika and a disgrace for Smer. He compares Milan Mazurek's gains with Kotleba's from thirteen years ago and calls them a failure by comparison; he considers it alarming, however, that Smer and, in some places, Hlas have accepted Republika as a coalition partner instead of erecting a “sanitary cordon” against it — something he says Ondrej Lunter managed to do in the Banská Bystrica Region. He interprets the Bratislava duel between Mayor Matúš Vallo and Transport Minister Jozef Ráž as a rejection of Fico-style decline: Ráž presented himself as independent during the campaign, but Zala recalls that Fico himself had already described a possible Ráž victory as a Smer victory. Aktuality.sk ↗

A commentary in Denník N offers a different view of Mazurek's result: he won in five of the six electoral districts east of Prešov, and in the sixth, Stropkov, he narrowly lost to KDH chairman Milan Majerský. The author concludes that he did not genuinely want the regional post — without a single councillor, he would have been unable to achieve anything in the assembly — and that his main aim was to “test and strengthen his brand,” which he succeeded in doing with the highest-ever number of votes for an extremist in Slovak local and regional elections. Denník N ↗ STVR adds a broader picture: the elections also revealed a generational divide between a mayor with more than 40 years in office and an 18-year-old newcomer to the assembly. STVR ↗

New faces, old defeats

New political faces have entered Bratislava's municipal districts. Alojz Hlina promises to protect Pečniansky Forest from development, Michal Kiča wants to oversee developers and the Slovnaft incinerator, and Jakub Goda wants to change the courtyard area around Delfín. Twenty-eight-year-old molecular biologist Sylvia Tilandyová entered politics, as she says, on the day she became “so angry about the political situation in Slovakia” that she sent her CV to Progressive Slovakia. Denník N ↗

Elsewhere, even those who did not expect it lost. In Prievidza, Mayor Katarína Macháčková's 16-year tenure came to an end — in an interview with SME, she called the candidacy of her longtime ally and deputy mayor Norbert Turanovič, who ran against her, a “betrayal of trust” and a personal disappointment, although she accepts the result. SME ↗ Korzár notes that in eastern Slovakia, candidates' controversial pasts have not always deterred voters. Korzár ↗

Trust in the government and state finances

The latest Focus poll showed that not a single minister in Fico's government enjoys more trust than distrust. Transport Minister Jozef Ráž scores best, with 45 percent trust despite losing in Bratislava; Investment Minister Samuel Migaľ scores worst, with 15 percent. Trust in former Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba has fallen from 30 to 25 percent since May. Aktuality.sk ↗

Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenický also highlighted that rating agency Standard & Poor's had confirmed Slovakia's credit rating with a stable outlook and that demand for the October issue of government bonds had been twice as high as the amount offered. In April, however, the same agency had downgraded Slovakia from A+ to A — the country's worst rating in more than ten years — citing weaker growth, rising expenditure and an expected weakening of consolidation efforts ahead of parliamentary elections. Aktuality.sk ↗

The Trade Union Association of Dispatchers and Controllers has also joined the strike alert, in which the Railway Workers' Trade Union has been since 14 October because of unsuccessful wage negotiations. The reason, it says, is zero growth in tariff wages in 2026 and rising living costs. The management of Železnice SR offered the unions a one-off bonus of 200 euros for January 2027 and a five-percent increase in tariff wages from July 2027. The unions regard the offer as a basis for further negotiations; the strike alert remains in force. SME ↗

Under the radar

Deputy parliamentary speaker Tibor Gašpar, who also failed to win a seat in the Nitra regional assembly in the regional elections, gave an interview to the Russian state agency TASS during Blanár's trip to Moscow. He defended cooperation with Russia, welcomed the resumption of exchanges of military attachés and rejected the use of frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine. Aktuality.sk ↗

The eDoklady application failed again during Saturday's elections and did not display the digital ID card on mobile phones, although several electoral commissions were prepared to use it. The interior minister admitted the error. TA3 ↗ More than 1,400 schools have requested security cameras; the first hundred will receive them in December at a cost of two million euros. According to STVR, the opposition criticizes the project as primarily a technical measure without sufficient prevention. STVR ↗ According to Education Minister Tomáš Drucker, the Hlas-SD party is also promoting legislative changes that would allow pupils' personal belongings to be checked in the event of an immediate security risk. Živé.sk ↗

In connection with Sunday's parliamentary elections, Serbia's prosecutor's office for organized crime has begun examining criminal complaints against several state officials, including the Serbian ambassador serving in Slovakia, over suspicions of abuse of public office and violations of electoral rights. Hospodárske noviny ↗ TA3 frames it as an investigation that followed the student movement's victory. TA3 ↗

To mark the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the Nežná! festival is planned for 17 November. According to its organizer, it aims to be a non-partisan celebration of democracy, not merely a political protest or commemorative event; its goal is a parallel programme in dozens of towns and municipalities across Slovakia. SME ↗

What hotinfo is watching

• Constitutional Court: when and how it will rule on the president's power to refuse to appoint a minister — until its decision, Kuffa will not become minister.
• Railways: whether ŽSR management and the unions will reach a wage agreement before the strike alert turns into an actual strike.
• Czech-Slovak government: the programme of the joint meeting on 10 November in Bratislava and an assessment of the memorandum on deepened cooperation. SITA ↗
• Schools: which of the first hundred schools will receive cameras in December and how the proposed legislation on checking pupils' personal belongings will stand up.
• Prievidza: how the town hall handover to the new mayor will take place on 9 November and what role former deputy mayor Norbert Turanovič will be given.

Illustrative photo: Grassalkovich Palace, seat of the president of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava (Uoaei1, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).