500 People Attend Tenth Weekly Bonaparte Protest

Bratislava, August 22 (TASR) – Around 500 people gathered for the tenth weekly protest staged in front of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s private flat in the Bonaparte residential complex in Bratislava on Monday, calling for the resignations of both Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak.

The Bonaparte complex belongs to businessman Ladislav Basternak, who is suspected of tax fraud. Opposition parties Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and OLaNO-NOVA allege that Kalinak provided cover for Basternak when he was being investigated by police.

The tenth demo – the smallest to date – was largely peaceful, apart from the appearance of a handful of protesters holding banners and shouting that all politicians are equal in an effort to provoke other attendees. Nevertheless, their attempts were booed away by the crowd.

Apart from several activists, mainly environmentalists, the protesters were addressed from the dais by OLaNO-NOVA MPs Jan Budaj and Daniel Lipsic, and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) MP Lubomir Galko.

Lipsic in his speech likened Slovakia to a small village on the US-Mexican border from the classic film The Magnificent Seven. The town is controlled by a small group of bandits and oligarchs. Nevertheless, Lipsic added that he believes that people won’t give up with the protests, and they’ll surely succeed in tearing down the system of oligarchy in Slovakia – be it in September or perhaps later.

In response to the Kalinak-Basternak scandal, SaS and OLaNO-NOVA have announced that they’ve prepared a special newspaper issue called KALIspecial explaining the case to the public. The newspaper should be distributed to households throughout Slovakia.