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SDKU Publishes List of Smer's Unkept Promises
Wednesday 24 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 24 (TASR) - The Government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico has lost touch with reality in Slovakia, watching on passively as unemployment and corruption grow rapidly, and burdening Slovakia with heavy debts, representatives of the main opposition party SDKU-DS said at a press conference on Wednesday.
"The prime minister is going round on his inspection days at the ministries ... back-slapping and talking about how everything is just fine," said SDKU-DS vice-chair Iveta Radicova, stressing that her party gained a totally different view when travelling around the country and talking to ordinary Slovaks. "I've got the feeling that we must have been travelling round a different country," she said.
SDKU vice-chair Ivan Miklos presented a new website - www.oklamali.sk, on which the party has listed Smer-SD's unkept pre-election pledges and promises stated in the Government Manifesto. The promises of other coalition parties are not included in the list, as the Opposition views Smer as the dominant party and the one that determines Slovakia's development.
Among the most serious lies, Miklos highlighted Fico's claim that unemployment in Slovakia has grown in line with the EU average. Based on available data, Miklos said that unemployment in Slovakia has increased at a rate that is 115 percent higher than the EU average. Moreover, the Government is doing nothing to reverse this development.
Miklos noted that Fico rejects criticism that the Government is encumbering Slovakia with debts. "Two years ago, we had record-low indebtedness at 27.6 percent (of GDP). It's 50.6 percent of GDP this year," he stressed.
Another especially serious neglected promise concerns corruption, said Miklos. "The (level of) corruption that we have at the moment has never been seen here before," he said, referring to data provided by Transparency International, according to which corruption grew faster in 2008 than it did in the era of former PM (1990-98) and HZDS chairman Vladimir Meciar. Conversely, corruption levels fell under SDKU chairman Mikulas Dzurinda's government (1998-2006), stressed Miklos. "Fico is lying if he calls these comparisons made by international agencies into doubt," he added.
According to SDKU MP Lucia Zitnanska, people in Slovakia feel that corruption is growing. There are two battlefields in the fight against corruption - there should be fewer opportunities for corruption, and people should feel sure that that those who engage in corruption will go to prison. "Smer promised both of these things, but, unfortunately, the reverse is true. We've seen in all the big scandals that it's difficult to gain access to contracts," she said.
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