Slovakian Health Minister Marek Krajci resigned Thursday amid pressure from the country’s four-party coalition government, which threatened to disband last month in protest of his order of two million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V, a coronavirus vaccine candidate.
Prime Minister Igor Matovic bypassed Slovakia’s coalition government in late February to order shipments of Russia’s Sputnik V after Krajci advocated for the purchase. Critics argued Slovakia should have waited for European Union (E.U.) authorities to approve the coronavirus vaccine candidate for emergency use first before ordering the shots. One coalition party member threatened to quit the bloc in protest of the Sputnik V purchase, while another demanded a leadership reshuffle.
“Two coalition parties made my resignation a condition for them to stay in the coalition. In such a situation, I think there was no point arguing. … I am not glued to my seat (at the ministry),” Krajci said at a press briefing held on March 11 to announce his resignation.
Prime Minister Matovic joined Krajci at Thursday’s press conference. He said the health minister’s departure would be “gradual” and take weeks. Matovic expressed “hope that the health minister would only leave his post at a time when the Sputnik V vaccination campaign would be in full swing,” according to Russia’s state-controlled RT news network.
Matovic further suggested that Krajci had previously been targeted for ousting by his opponents in Slovakia’s coalition government, implying they had merely used the Sputnik V scandal as a “pretext” to pressure him into resignation.
“The man (Krajci) standing next to me sought to protect health and lives with every decision he made. Unfortunately, those who put obstacles in his way made him their target,” Matovic said during the nationally televised briefing.
Michal Sipos, the head of Slovakia’s largest coalition party – a parliamentary faction known as “Ordinary People and Independent Personalities” – said on Thursday his party “stands by Krajci and his decisions.”
“[I]f the minister’s proposals were implemented, the epidemic situation in Slovakia would be better,” Sipos added.
Slovakia recorded the world’s second-highest per-capita death rate for Chinese coronavirus over the past week after the neighboring Czech Republic, according to Our World in Data.
In addition to Slovakia, Hungary has also bypassed the E.U. to order Sputnik V shots directly from Russia, as the multinational governing bloc struggles to roll out its vaccination campaign. Matovic this week urged the E.U.’s European Medicines Agency to speed up its approval process for coronavirus vaccine candidates.
Breitbart News reported last month how Ukraine banned the distribution of Sputnik V, calling it a “hybrid weapon.”