Premier Thinks Parliament Should Deal with Suspicions of Election Meddling

       Bratislava, 12 August (TASR) - Parliament should look into the suspicions that the United Kingdom meddled in the Slovak parliamentary election in 2023, Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) stated in a video posted on a social network on Tuesday, adding that he wants to find out to what extent the British campaign helped the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party and whether the campaign spending limit was exceeded in this case.
        "The Slovak Parliament should deal with two issues in the near future. First, to what extent the British campaign and British money helped 'obedient Slovakia' [a reference to Progressive Slovakia - ed.note]. How many percentage points less would they have had if the campaign hadn't been there? I would say many percent. Secondly, whether British money in favour of 'obedient Slovakia' means that the legal limit for spending on parliamentary election campaigns was exceeded," he emphasised.
        The premier again spoke of unfair fighting by PS. He therefore thinks that the issues in question are absolutely legitimate. "They could lead Parliament into quite serious decisions," he pointed out, assuming that the coalition Slovak National Party (SNS) will share a similar opinion with him on this matter. However, he said he doesn't know the stance of the coalition Voice-SD party, as he doesn't know what the current level of Voice-SD's inclination towards PS is, claiming that this has always been present in the party's top structures. "It is up to Voice whether it has the same clarity of mind as Smer-SD and, I believe, SNS about what happened in the summer and autumn of 2023 before the election. And whether Voice realises that as a party it could have had a significantly better result," he added.
        At the end of July, the prime minister declared that the UK Foreign Office paid influencers via a media agency to influence the Slovak parliamentary election in 2023 to the detriment of Smer-SD and to the benefit of PS, referring to a story published on the marker.sk website. The British Foreign Office has denied that it tried to influence the outcome of the election or to encourage people to vote for or against a particular party. It said its activities were aimed at encouraging young people to take part in the democratic process in their countries by participating in elections.