Svobodna Dnevnik

[Hadash]

Svobodna Dnevnik

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Former Republican politician Zdravka Magajna announced as President of the Republican Council
By: Polina Lamparska
Published: Zechyr, 1596


Zdravka Magajna, during a recent interview

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President Agnieszka Szczepanska announced that Zdravka Magajna will be the next President of the Republican Council (head of government) after almost two months of negotiations between the Centre Democratic Party and the Mordvanian Republican Party. Milivoj Plesko, President of the Republican Council since 1595 and Mordvanian Republican Party candidate in the 1596 Mordvanian presidencial election, had announced his resignation only two days ago.

There were increasing rumours that the Mordvanian Republican Party and President Agnieszka Szczepanska's Centre Democratic Party would form a strong coalition government (as the two largest political parties in the parliament) as they did from 1591 to 1594. However, a representative of the Mordvanian Republican Party confirmed today that the Mordvanian Republican Party will not join Magajna's government, probably in order to avoid  giving the leadership of the opposition to Lojze Drnovsek's National Democratic Republican Party, as the nationalist party is the third largest political party. The Centre Democratic Party is expected to govern in a minority government, with only 98 of 599 MPs in the Mordvanian parliament, becoming the weakest government in thirty years - at least until the next election, as President Szczepanska has confirmed there will be snap elections in six months.

Magajna, 52, was a surprising choice as head of government, as she is not a member of the Centre Democratic Party. A former co-founder and member of the defunct Republican Liberal Party (and before that, MP from the left-wing Republican Social Radical Party), she was Minister of Economic Development from 1579 to 1585 under a Mordvanian Republican Party-led government before ending her political career in 1588. Since then, she worked in the private sector, and although she recently declared to have voted for Agnieszka Szczepanska in both rounds of the last presidential election, she is not a member of the Centre Democratic Party.

Magajna has declared that her government will be likely formed by both independent ministers and Centre Democratic Party members, following negotiations with President Szczepanska and Edgar Puusepp, the General Secretary of the Centre Democratic Party, who is expected to join the government as well. It is expected that the government will likely include some of the Centre Democratic Party politicians who were already in the government during the 1591-1594 coalition (the only time the centrist party joined the national government) such as Kazys Gimbutiené, who was Minister of Economic Development from 1591 to 1594, and who is expected to be the next Minister of Finance.

Still, Magajna has declared that she will not lead a "[Centre Democratic Party's] government...but a Mordvanian government". It is understood that Magajna's government will not try to implement the Centre Democratic Party's political platform -as the party lacks such support in the parliament at least until next parliamentary election- and it will rather offer concessions to both the right and the left factions in the parliament in order to pass some of the reforms promised by President Szczepanska during her presidential campaign. Still, it is unclear what kind of political relation will be established between Magajna and President Szcepanska, or if the latter will have an active role or she will rather have a more secondary role similar as President Martelj did during most of his presidency.

While many of the members of the government will not be confirmed until tomorrow, Magajna already confirmed that she talked in the last hours with Maja Korozek (former Minister of Public Education from 1585 to 1588, when she was a member of the center-left Radical Democratic Party) who will be the Minister of Justice and Miroslav Stovdek, despite the latter was still a member of the Mordvanian Republican Party until recently. Stovdek, 67, is the oldest of all the ministers confirmed so far, and he was Minister of Energy of Communications from 1579 to 1585 (before, he was a one-term mayor of Mestarka from 1571 to 1575). In the last years, Stovdek was a member of the board of directors of a well-known Mordvanian energy company, as he retired from politics in 1588, when he left the Mordvanian parliament.

Although unconfirmed, a more suprising and unexpected choice could be, if rumours are confirmed, Eha Grahek-Ternehetär, who according to some reports, could be Minister of Foreign Affairs, after she was seen by journalists sharing a table with then President-elect Agnieszka Szczepanska in a famous restaurant in Mestarka. Grahek-Ternehetär, an ethnic Kaljuran, was already Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1585 to 1591. Grahek-Ternehetär is a former member of the far-left Left Party and became top diplomat precisely during Zvezdana Serebryak's presidency (former President Serebryak, currently mayor of Brezedina, recently declared to be surprised about such rumours). Grahek-Ternehetär, who started her political career in Serebryak's United Progressive Socialist Party, was General Secretary of the Left Party from 1593 to 1594, and despite not running as candidate of the 1594 parliamentary election, she was rumoured as a candidate for the Left Party in the last presidential election.

Another rumoured minister could be Stanislava Slokar, who was leader and co-founder of the Equality Party, a feminist political party, and was Chairman of the Assembly of Representatives -Mordvanian parliamentary Lower House- from 1585 and 1588 after being elected to the parliament as a candidate for the Left Party.