Andrej Danko (born 12 August 1974) is a Slovak politician who has been
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** In ...
Revúca
Revúca (; formerly ''Veľká Revúca'' in Slovak; german: Groß-Rauschenbach; hu, Nagyrőce) is a town in Banská Bystrica Region, Slovakia. Revúca is the seat of Revúca District.
Etymology
The name is of Slovak origin and was initially t ...
, Danko studied at the Faculty of Law at Comenius University in
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...
. After compulsory military service, he founded several commercial companies and worked as an independent lawyer.
During 2006–2010, he was an assistant in the
National Council of Slovakia
The National Council of the Slovak Republic ( sk, Národná rada Slovenskej republiky, abbreviated to ''NR SR'') is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameral and consists of 150 members, who are elected by universal suffrage under pr ...
and a member of several parliamentary commissions. He became the first vice-president of the Slovak National Party in 2010.
In 2012, he became the chairman of the party after getting support from many of the party's members, succeeding
Ján Slota
Ján Slota (born 14 September 1953) is the co-founder and former president of the Slovak National Party,
On 23 March 2016 Danko was elected Speaker of the National Council.
In 2016, Danko called for the Burka to be Banned in Slovakia.
Controversies
Promotion to the rank of Captain in Reserve
In September 2016, while in his position as the Speaker of the Parliament, Danko was promoted by eight ranks (from OR-4 to O-2), to Captain in Reserve of the Slovak Army, by his friend
Peter Gajdoš
Peter may refer to:
People
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* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, the Minister of Defense. The promotion was viewed by some in the media, general and internet public as a sign of corrupt government. This is because a single promotion by eight ranks has never happened in the history of Slovak Army, not at all to a person who has only joined mandatory national service for the period of one year. On April 29, 2020, Minister of Defence
Jaroslav Naď
Jaroslav Naď (born 21 March 1981, Nitra, Czecho-Slovakia) is a Slovak politician, who has served as Minister of Defence since March 2020, as a nominee of OĽaNO. He specialises in national security issues. He previously worked with Globsec.
...
canceled his rank.
Plagiarism allegations
In 2018, Danko was accused of plagiarism of his doctoral
thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
at University of Matej Bel in 2000. When media showed interest in his thesis, he asked the university to ban public access to it. Following public pressure, Danko removed the ban after one month and the university library allowed the public to see the thesis, but not to take pictures of it. In November 2018 the university set up a commission to review his thesis. According to the conclusion published by the commission in January 2019, the rigorous procedure met valid regulations, but the thesis contains parts that only slightly differ from original sources, the most of the thesis is the same to a large extent and it preserves also the structure of sources without proper citation or paraphrasing.
2019 Presidential Inauguration
In 2019, Danko presided over the ceremonial assembly of the National Council of the Slovak Republic on the occasion of presidential inauguration of Zuzana Čaputová in the Slovak Philharmonic, and delivered an unscheduled speech to address the participants. This caused a breach of a protocol which states that duties of the outgoing president cease at 12.00 GMT+1 and the elect takes office. Slovak laws state that in an event of vacant presidential seat, some competences of the president are passed to the Speaker of the National Council and to the Government of the Slovak republic. Zuzana Čaputová was sworn in at 12.07, so there were some polemics concerning who was the president for the seven-minute term. Some people (including the ''Office of the National Council'' and
Peter Kubina
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, law consultant of Zuzana Čaputová) said that the president was still Andrej Kiska, but some other people (e. g. the protocolist
Ladislav Špaček
Ladislav is a Czech, Slovak and Croatian variant of the Slavic name Vladislav. The female form of this name is Ladislava.
Folk etymology occasionally links ''Ladislav'' with the Slavic goddess Lada.
Spellings and variations
In Bulgarian a ...
) said that there was no president. Other people thought that Andrej Danko and Peter Pellegrini, the prime minister, were carrying out presidential competences.