Slovak News Back to the news
Zala: Associating Lifts for Voters With Bribery Is Demagogy
Sunday 22 November 2009 Zoom in | Print page
(STV, November 22, O pat minut dvanast)
No election act forbids people from providing voters with lifts to polling stations and furnishing them with candidate lists, MEP Boris Zala (Smer-SD) said on Slovak Television's (STV) politics show 'O Pat Minut Dvanast' (Five Minutes To Twelve) on Sunday.
According to Zala, associating lifts with the criminal act of bribery is demagogic. SDKU-DS vice-chair Ivan Miklos countered with the fact that Roma voters have confessed that they were paid to cast their votes in the Higher Territorial Unit {VUC) elections,. Miklos added that such activities violate the concept of fair elections and that the governing parties bear responsibility.
Zala said that if bribery was indeed the case, the suspicious activities should be thoroughly investigated. However, he thinks that the Opposition is only attempting to divert attention away from the fact that it lost the VUC elections.
Miklos deems the poll results encouraging and not worse than those in previous elections.
The two politicians also commented on the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which the Opposition and Government celebrated separately. Miklos said that the policies of Robert Fico's Government are in contradiction with the values of the Velvet Revolution. "Robert Fico dishonours November 1989 (the month of the Revolution) and its participants," he said.
"No one from Smer-SD has ever been glib about the defeat of the communist regime," reacted Zala.
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.
