Opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party is extending the list of parties it is not willing to cooperate with after the general elections, said SaS leader Richard Sulik on TV Markiza’s politics discussion programme ‘Dvadsatpatka’ (Twenty-five) on Sunday.
Following the governing Smer-SD and far-right LSNS, SaS has ruled out cooperation with the Slovak National Party (SNS) led by Andrej Danko. Danko ruled out cooperation with the liberals on the same programme a week ago.
“We wanted to give it a chance. However, the party has been going from one scandal to another over the past two years. They disqualified themselves in our eyes with this. I cannot imagine cooperating with SNS led by Andrej Danko. I’m ruling it out,” stated Sulik.
Concerning the upcoming local elections, Sulik reiterated that SaS has signed a cooperation contract with OLaNO and it is holding talks with other parties, too. He confirmed some candidate names for mayor posts supported by the Opposition. These are Jan Gresso Jr. running for mayor in Nitra, Peter Brocka in Trnava, Peter Fiabane in Zilina, Igor Kasper in Banska Bystrica and Jaroslav Polacek in Kosice. Bratislava is still uncertain, but Sulik would personally support [former RTVS general director] Vaclav Mika’s candidacy. Trencin and Presov have not been decided, either. Current mayor Richard Rybnicek is being mentioned in Trencin, as well as Milos Micega, while current mayor Andrea Turcanova and Frantisek Olha are being considered in Presov.
The chief of the liberals also touched on a long-term issue for SaS – the ‘levy bonus’. “We are able to increase salaries of people with average and below-average earnings. As much as 70 percent of the whole package would go to them. No other party has submitted even a sign of any reform to the levy-social system,” said Sulik, admitting that some of SaS’s calculations related to the levy bonus were wrong. However, he highlighted the fact that the party has done at least something. “We must reform the system, otherwise we’ll run into debts similar to Greece,” stressed Sulik.
