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Dzurinda Angry That Fico Dicussed SDKU in Absence of SDKU Officials
Sunday 07 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 7 (TASR) - Prime Minister and Smer-SD party chief Robert Fico is a coward because he went on Slovak Television's weekly discussion show 'O pat minut dvanast' (Five Minutes to Twelve) to discuss the financing of the opposition SDKU-DS party with Jan Figel, the leader of a party (the Christian Democrats/KDH) that has nothing to do with the issue concerned, SDKU leader Mikulas Dzurinda told TASR later on Sunday.
"Fico said at the beginning of the show that he'd accepted an offer to appear on a show for the first time alongside an opponent because it is alleged that an unprecedented case concerning the financing of a political party has emerged. Nonetheless, he went on to discuss this with a representative of a political party to which the harsh and false allegations that Fico has uttered over the last few days do not apply," said Dzurinda.
"That's why I'm urging Robert Fico to stop screaming out from behind a fence, and come to have a discussion for real instead," said former two-time premier Dzurinda.
According to SDKU vice-chairman Ivan Miklos, speaking on TV Markiza's show 'Na Telo', TV Markiza has offered scope for a Fico vs. Dzurinda discussion programme, but "Fico snubbed it." Miklos claimed that Fico chose Figel to join him on a political debate show because Figel "hasn't made it clear yet that he wouldn't enter a coalition with Fico."
"Slovak Televison has yet again confirmed its status as a skivvy of the governing Smer-SD party," said SDKU MP Tomas Galbavy. "The topics and the guests on the show, including a so-called independent political analyst, were chosen to suit the Prime Minister's goals," he said, adding that he will file a complaint to the Broadcasting and Retransmission Council over the issue.
Fico yet again launched gross attacks on SDKU with TV channel presenting and tolerating this while denying SDKU the chance of having its own representative on the show, thus giving it no chance to respond to Fico's claims, said Galbavy.
STV spokesman Peter Susko has defended his channel's actions. "Slovak Television is unaware of why it should exchange views over its programmes with MPs representing political parties engaged in the pre-election battle," he said.
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