Pellegrini thwarted a referendum (comment) – SME comments

4. June 2025 at 15:52

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The world is increasingly harder to predict, but when petition sheets arrived at the Presidential Palace with a request for a listing referendum on anti -Russian sanctions, it was clear that the decision Petr Pellegrini It will be controversial. And even before he decided what he would do.

President At least he had no « good », a politically grateful and constitutional conformity, from his own perspective. I mean, one would be, but you forbade it yourself: to turn to Constitutional Court with a request to review the admissibility of the referendum question.

Indeed, if it is sure that such a referendum must not be held, because the question is unclear and doubts the enforceability of the outcome, it would be best to contact the Constitutional Court. It would remove the space for legitimate remorse about the arbitrariness and at the same time we would get a finding that would more accurately define the referendum limits in the future.

But this possibility was lost when it was absurdly reproached by Zuzana Čaputová, so the improvisation remained.

The President’s decision to cut a referendum, so to speak, can also be appreciated as a manifestation of political courage, which we do not always see with Pellegrini. He must know that he will take a lot of sharp criticism for it, which does not even have to be completely futile.