Slovak News Back to the news
Political Analysts Describe Party Electioneering So Far as Low-key
Sunday 23 May 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, May 23 (TASR) - Leading political analysts concur that the pre-election activities of the country's mainstream political parties, which on Saturday began the official campaign prior to polling day on June 12, have so far been rather low-key apart from those of the strongest ruling party Smer-SD.
While the Slovak National Party (SNS) is more noticeable for its political scandals than campaigning, there is little to see of or hear from fellow government party LS-HZDS, which is the weakest element, said Michal Horsky.
Horsky blames this on a number of factors, including that the party is burning itself out on the political scene. "Its leader Vladimir Meciar lacks his old desire for power. He's only looking to be part of the ruling coalition to gain control of the legal system in order to preclude any redress of previous legal moves with retroactive disclosures from the remnants of his rule in the 1990s," he said.
Horsky is echoed by another analyst Grigorij Meseznikov. "LS-HZDS's campaign is very lacklustre. I've seen its billboards and campaign materials - they're poor." Meseznikov believes that HZDS will only just get into parliament in the event of a low voter turnout, otherwise the party, which is petering out on the political scene, will have no chance.
Analyst Miroslav Kusy and Meseznikov commended the campaign of parliamentary hopeful Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), with the former saying that the party has run a campaign that may not so noticeable in public, but has splendid heartlands on the internet. "It is, in a manner of speaking, hidden, but could well reverse the entire process, as was the case with U.S. President Barack Obama." Meseznikov said that SaS has imaginative billboards.
Both described the political campaign of the strongest opposition SDKU-DS as vapid. "I expected more from SDKU-DS," said Meseznikov. Kusy opined that the party has bet on emulating the leftist Smer-SD. "It wants to be more social than the social democrats, to beat PM and Smer leader Robert Fico at his own game, which I don't find to be the most fortunate tactic," said Kusy, who thinks that the activities of the opposition Christian Democrats (KDH) are low-key. "They're bringing in nothing new, it's the old, traditional rhetoric of KDH that repeats itself," said Kusy.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
