SaS: Fico and Voice-SD Attacking Foundations of Democracy

Bratislava, May 22 (TASR) - The proposal to raise the electoral threshold needed for a party to enter parliament to 7 percent and to restrict who can run in elections is an attack on the foundations of democratic pluralism in Slovakia, declared Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party leader Branislav Groehling on Thursday. Groehling believes that Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and Voice-SD are attacking democracy in Slovakia. "Such efforts to weaken democratic competition strikingly resemble authoritarian practices. Not everyone can afford to personally come up with €150 million to start a party, as Robert Fico did. It's no surprise that such an idea was presented by the coalition after Prime Minister Robert Fico's meeting with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin," stated Groehling. SaS described Thursday's press conference by Interior Minister and Voice-SD leader Matus Sutaj Estok as a "comical cry into the void" via which Voice-SD confirmed that its nominees "are incapable of doing anything for the people, have no original topics, and can only parrot what Prime Minister Robert Fico says." According to SaS, reducing state expenditures, including through the abolition of ministries, is necessary, but coming from the leader of Voice-SD, it's come far too late. "A year and a half ago they established a new Sport Ministry instead of abolishing the unnecessary Ministry for EU Funds," it added. SaS considers it to be cheap populism when the coalition uses fiscal consolidation as justification to "starve out" small political parties. The Interior Ministry proposed that only parties which make it into parliament after elections should receive state funding. Party contributions could be reduced by 30 percent if the public finance deficit reaches or exceeds 3 percent of GDP. The deposit for parliamentary elections could rise from €17,000 to €50,000, while in European elections it could increase from €1,700 to €25,000. According to the proposal, parties would also be prohibited from changing their names or abbreviations for five years. The prime minister also indicated that as part of the consolidation process, the number of MPs in Parliament could be reduced from 150 to 100, with the threshold for entering parliament raised from 5 to 7 percent. mf/df