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Roma Association Suggests that Vote-buying Should be Criminalised
Friday 18 June 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, June 18 (TASR) - The Union of Roma in Slovakia (URS) civic association is demanding that Slovakia's Election Act be amended in a manner that beefs up the penalties ensuing from the practice known as vote-buying among the Roma, URS chairman Frantisek Tanko said in Bratislava on Friday.
Tanko added that vote-buying involving thousands of votes took place in the June 12 general election, and had an impact on the results of individual parliamentary parties. It's no democracy to buy votes and make it into Parliament for a couple of euros," he said. Due to what he described as safety reasons, he refused to specify the parties concerned.
He expressed regret at the fact that the Roma nation let itself be manipulated for a few euros, thereby losing its proverbial pride.
Based on URS's monitoring activities, Tanko said that the practice mainly took place in eastern Slovakia, where voters were paid between 3 and 10 euros to vote for a particular party.
URS finds it outrageous that parties "that profess political decency and fairness dare to use the weakest group of the population for their own interests," he added.
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