Gaspar: Smer-SD Can Imagine Post-election Cooperation with Republic Party

Bratislava, 5 January (TASR) - The Smer-SD party can imagine post-election cooperation even with the extra-parliamentary far-right Republic party, House Vice-chair Tibor Gaspar (Smer-SD) has said in an end-of-year interview for TASR, adding that it's an entity that needs to be spoken to. According to Gaspar, Smer-SD will hold talks with parties that at least partially overlap with its values. The party isn't reluctant to cooperate with the Christian Democrats (KDH), either, he said, adding that KDH would be able to push through more things from its programme in cooperation with Smer-SD than with the other opposition parties. Gaspar told TASR that Smer is still a social democratic party, and the parties with which it's willing to cooperate after an election must have values that overlap with this at least partially. "I believe that Voice-SD will somehow recover from the state that it's in today. I even believe that national forces could also be represented, either through the Slovak National Party (SNS) again, or maybe through the Republic party," he said. According to Gaspar, internal changes are underway in the Republic party. "And it's one thing to criticise, and something else to govern," he said. "It's still a legitimate entity that is a part of our political arena in line with the laws of this country. And its members are in the European Parliament today. So yes, it's an entity that needs to be spoken to," he stated. Gaspar stressed that the formation of a governing coalition can't be achieved without compromises. "This coalition was also formed with quite significant compromises, so we'll negotiate with whomever has a programme that overlaps with what we want to achieve," he said. "We've long been offering a possible vision of cooperation to KDH. I still think that their election programme, their world of values, is closer to ours than to the progressive or liberal world," said the House vice-chair, adding that the Christian Democrats have rejected the latter. "In my opinion, just as they managed to push through what they wanted in the Constitution with our help, they might push through many things today in the social area or in other areas from their programme, more than if they were in a kind of hodge-podge with the Progressive Slovakia (PS) or Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) parties," he said. ko/df