Progressive Slovakia to File Complaints Over 'We're Helping People' Leaflets

Bratislava, December 16 (TASR) - Non-parliamentary coalition of Progressive Slovakia-Together will seek legal action against labour minister Jan Richter (Smer-SD) over what they believe is Richter's misuse of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and the Family for election campaigning, TASR learnt on Monday. Transparency International Slovensko drew attention to the fact that the minister had printed and distributed during these days 2.25 million leaflets titled 'We're Helping People'. According to PS-Together legal expert Pavel Nechala, the leaflets pose an unprecedented intervention into the fairness of election campaigning. "The information printed on the leaflets is neither urgent nor current. Its sole purpose is the promotion of minister Richter during election campaigning," emphasised Nechala. The coalition also intends to challenge the leaflets in the House Committee for Conflict of Interest, Interior Ministry and State Commission for Elections and Political Parties Financing Supervision. "Smer-SD is a rich political party, with sizeable state budget contributions for its activities. They've got enough party money for a bountiful election campaign. That makes the conduct of minister Richter all the more pathetic," claimed Together vice-chair Jozef Mihal, adding that it's particularly sad when politicians are misusing public money originally earmarked for social policy and support for families. On Friday (December 13), Richter stated that the ministry would print the leaflets on legal changes as of January 2020 "to let people know because there'll be a relatively sizeable number of measures as of January 1". "I can't recall any other time when we received so many questions and inquiries on individual bills," he stated. mf/mcs