Danko: Control of On-Line Election Campaigning Is a Challenge

Bratislava, April 1 (TASR) – Control of election campaigns for public posts in the on-line space is a serious problem for society, Parliamentary Chair Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party/SNS) said at a press conference on Monday, adding that he’ll initiate a discussion on this topic with all relevant political parties.

According to him, the aim is to “responsibly discuss this new phenomenon”. However, Danko admits that the legislation can’t be amended without the co-operation of Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and Interior Minister Denisa Sakova (both Smer-SD).

“Not everything is flawless. But this isn’t only Slovakia’s problem, the problem of many states is how to control the course of elections in the digital space. We have some terms that our laws already know, the issues of campaigning, of anti-campaigning, but we don’t have any appropriate penalties for violating these rules,” said Danko.

State Electoral Commission chairman Eduard Barany also pointed out the issue of elections in the digital space. “But we also have a second, virtual world, where, I must say, we haven’t got used to applying the same cultural, civilised rules that we generally respect in the real world. Perhaps the feeling of anonymity also contributes to this. I believe and hope that we’ll also succeed in bringing a cultural, civilisation level to this new world,” said Barany, who gave Danko on Monday the minutes from the first and second rounds of the presidential election.

The official winner of the second round of the presidential election is Zuzana Caputova with 58.4-percent support from voters. Maros Sefcovic collected 41.59 percent of the votes. Election turnout reached 41.79 percent, which is 1,847,417 voters. Caputova will take up the presidential office on June 15.