Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has offered to resign to solve the country's political crisis, but he has insisted that the president must agree to nominate a replacement chosen by his Smer party.

The Slovak governing coalition has been rocked by the murder last month of journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating alleged links between the Calabrian mafia and two members of the government office. The murder has added to simmering discontent with a series of government corruption scandals, and has generated large public protests. The junior coalition Most-Hid party has threatened to leave the government and opposition parties have called a no-confidence vote for March 19.

The offer to resign is Fico's main hope of avoiding early elections, which would likely lead to a big drop in support for the leftwing party he founded in 1999. 

It is now up to President Andrej Kiska whether to accept Fico’s demand or continue to call for early elections. It is also unclear yet whether Fico's replacement will win enough support in parliament to defeat any vote of no-confidence.

Fico announced three conditions after meeting Kiska: the president needs to respect that a new prime minister will be selected by Smer-SD, the coalition agreement of three parties will be honoured, and the president will also honour the results of 2016 election, which gave the current coalition a majority.

"It's important that the incumbent government coalition continues to carry out its mandate given by voters. Slovakia is in good shape, also owing to the current government coalition. So, it's our duty to continue to fulfil the will of people and not to give the country to opposition amateurs," said Fico and stressing that the early election would cause chaos and instability.

“In fulfilling this common duty, I am personally willing to do the maximum. Individual ambitions must not be more important than the fate of a country at risk of chaos,” Fico added.

Fico also pledged that the replacement for him will be announced on Thursday, March 15. According to Slovak media speculation, the new prime minister could be either current Finance Minister Peter Kazimir (Smer-SD) or the vice-chairman of Smer-SD and Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini.

The two other coalition parties have supported Fico’s offer. Most-Hid, a centrist largely ethnic Hungarian party, was unanimous in supporting this proposal. The party called for an early election but hadn't specified whether the resignation of Fico would be sufficient or not.

The second coalition party, the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) also welcomed this decision and plans to keep its three ministers at their places. SNS vice-chair Anton Hrnko said that this decision allows the coalition members to take a breath. "We're thus getting a new strength to implement the government manifesto which this coalition set in 2016," said Hrnko and added, that I view prime minister's decision as a gesture towards Most-Hid's demands.”

However, this step didn’t satisfy the organisers of recent protests. Organisers of "Let’s stand for decency in Slovakia" movement said on March 14, that the demonstration will be repeated on Friday, March 16. “Our demand is clear – the resignation of the government,” said co-organiser of the protest movement Karolina Farska.

According to the  latest polls done by agency Focus on a request of daily Dennik N, between March 7 – 13.62% of respondents said that Fico should step down. Only 11.8% of respondents said that they trust Fico and he should stay in office.

Another poll of the same agency showed that the support of Smer-SD is declining rapidly. The preference of Smer-SD was at 25.5% in January, whereas in March it dropped down to 20.20%. Most-Hid got basically the same results with 5.6% in March. The support for SNS, on the other hand, went up from 8.6% in January to 10% in March.

According to opposition party We Are Family, people won’t be probably satisfied with Fico resignation. "When we want to restore people's confidence in the state, people should decide, not politicians or oligarchs behind the scenes," said Boris Kollar, leader of this party with 10% support in March.

"This governmental crisis isn't about an exchange of chess pieces. We've witnessed that Robert Fico is proposing an exchange of chess pieces but the government isn't about him but about structures that have grown into every corner of the state. Citizens won't be satisfied with this," said caucus head Natalia Blahova of Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), a rightwing Eurosceptic party with 14% in March.