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Sulik: President Did His Best to Stymie Referendum
Tuesday 13 July 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, July 13 (TASR) - President Ivan Gasparovic has done all he could to scupper the referendum initiated by the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, SaS leader Richard Sulik told a press conference on Tuesday.
"He had an opportunity to show that he's a real democrat and that he takes people's opinions into consideration. Unfortunately, he failed to make use of this opportunity," asserted Sulik, stating that Gasparovic did nothing to bring the expenditures incurred by the referendum as low as possible.
"He acted in the way he did, and he virtually buried the referendum," added SaS MP and member of the party's petition committee Robert Mistrik.
According to Sulik, SaS hasn't given up on the referendum and will follow it through. "We've been dealing with it for 20 months now. It's a significant activity and we'll finalise it at least in order not to leave something half-baked and to show people that we won't disregard their will," he said, noting that SaS hasn't discussed the referendum with its fellow Coalition parties as yet.
Ivan Gasparovic announced earlier in July that the referendum made up of six questions will take place on September 18. The questions included involve: abolishing television and radio licence fees, curbing MPs' immunity, downsizing the number of MPs from 150 to 100, setting the maximum purchasing price for cars used by Government officials, and helping to make voting in elections available via the internet. The sixth question concerns removing the right to reply from public officials (as included in the current Press Act of 2008).
Analysts widely expect the referendum to be a failure due to a low turnout, partly due to the fact that it will take place between last month's general election and the local elections in November.
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