BRATISLAVA – Slovakia's Prime Minister Igor Matovic and his government resigned on Tuesday to ease a political crisis triggered by a secret deal to buy Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.
It is the first European government to collapse due to its handling of the pandemic but the move will keep the current four-party coalition in power and avoid the possibility of an early election.
The coalition holds a comfortably parliamentary majority. President Zuzana Caputova accepted the resignation and asked Eduard Heger from Matovic’s Ordinary People party to form a new government.
Heger served as the finance minister and deputy prime minister in the outgoing government. Matovic, who had announced on Sunday that he would be making the move, is