President Kiska and His Wife Vote in Native Poprad

Poprad, November 10 (TASR) – President Andrej Kiska and his wife cast their votes in the local elections on Saturday in their hometown of Poprad (Presov region).

Kiska said that when he studied the list of candidates, many names were unknown to him. “On Friday (November 9) we very intensively studied the list of candidates… I think there are 64 candidates for councillors in Poprad and we had trouble to decide who to vote for. Despite the fact that these elections are the most personal ones, you just don’t know many of the candidates,” said the president, adding that he and his wife personally know about 15-20 percent of the candidates.

In this context, Kiska called on people to choose their representatives according to their deeds and not according to their promises. “In each election people decide about something else, each election has its own atmosphere. Now we’re deciding who will become a mayor or a councillor in almost 3000 towns and villages in Slovakia. A lot is at stake – it’s about €4.5 billion of public resources, it’s about what pavements we have, what is built and where, what parks, roads, primary schools and kindergartens we have,” said the president, stressing that these elections are specific, as they are the first since the dramatic events following the murders of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova.

“These are the first elections in which we can show what we mean by decent and honest Slovakia,” he said.

As many as 11 candidates are running for the post of Poprad mayor while more than 60 candidates are running for local councillors in the town.