Smer-SD: Working Group to Be Set Up on Electoral Legislation

Bratislava, 23 July (TASR) - A working group is to be set up in connection with electoral legislation, the coalition Smer-SD party said on Wednesday in response to the statements made by Parliamentary Chair Richard Rasi (Voice-SD) concerning the debate on dropping a single (nationwide) electoral district from the Slovak Constitution. "There is a promise to set up a working commission to deal with electoral legislation," Lubica Koncalova of the Smer-SD press department told TASR when asked whether the party is willing to discuss the aforementioned move. The coalition Slovak National Party (SNS) has already said that it considers the issue to be irrelevant. The party said that it won't support the dropping of a single electoral district because this would lead to the elimination of smaller political parties. The coalition Voice-SD party wanted the provision on a single electoral district to be dropped from the Constitution as part of an amendment. However, the proposal failed to win sufficient support in Parliament even from coalition MPs. Rasi hopes that agreement will eventually be achieved and that the sentence will be dropped from the Constitution. The provision that Slovakia forms a single electoral district for general elections was inserted into the Constitution under the previous government. Rasi stressed that dropping the provision would not bring about specific changes to the electoral system but would only open a debate on them. am/df