Slovakia’s president Andrej Kiska has rejected the new cabinet that was presented by the man he designated as the country’s new prime minister, Peter Pellegrini. Pellegrini is from the same political party as former PM Robert Fico, who was forced out of office over the murder of an investigative journalist. Kiska said the country’s faith in government would not be restored by merely cosmetic changes to the government, in light of the suspicion of a connection between organized crime groups the journalist was writing about and what he claimed were highly placed government officials. Pellegrini, said Kiska, needs to convince Slovaks “that the new Cabinet will usher in changes that we’re all expecting to see. He needs to form a government, the staffing of which, particularly the interior minister, should manage to calm down the tense climate in society. A government that should be capable of convincing the public that it will ensure an unbiased and independent investigation into the murders of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee as well as into connections of organised crime that Kuciak wrote about.”
