Court to Rule on Slovak President's Office Tenure

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia's ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) has called on the Constitutional Court to rule when President Michal Kováč's term in office expires, the court said on Tuesday. "We received a submission from a group of HZDS deputies asking for a ruling on the expiry date of the president's term in office," Marianna Mochnáčová, the court's spokeswoman told Reuters. "The case has already been given to a reporting judge but there is no legal limit within which the court has to reach its decision," she added. The move is the latest in the ongoing fight between Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar and Kováč, former political allies and now bitter political enemies. Kováč maintains his term ends on the fifth anniversary of his inauguration on March 2, 1998. Mečiar claims the president's term in office ends in the middle of February next year, the fifth anniversary of his election. The European Commission said in July Slovakia's poor record on political reform had ruled it out of the first round of talks on EU membership and cited the constant tension between president and prime minister as one of the factors undermining democracy. Under the constitution the president is elected by parliament and needs a two-thirds majority to assume offfice. Parliament can hold early presidential elections, but the new leader's term would not begin until Kováč's ends. It is uncertain whether parliament will be able elect a new president at all with the current composition of parliament, where neither the ruling coalition nor the opposition can muster the votes needed to have their candidate elected. If a stalemate occurs, presidential powers, albeit whittled down over the years by the Mečiar government, would pass to the cabinet and effectively to Mečiar, a situation the opposition is desperate to avoid. Mečiar and Kováč, his handpicked presidential candidate, have been political foes since Kovac was instrumental in parliament's passing a vote of no confidence in Mečiar in the spring of 1994. Mečiar regained power in elections later in 1994 and the three-party government, dominated by Mečiar's HZDS, has whittled away Kováč's powers. The United States and other western countries have sharply criticised Slovakia for four rocky years of opaque political infighting and failure to ensure progress in democratic reforms.