Remisova: Departure of Kolikova's Faction Betrayal of Party, Values and Voters

Bratislava, September 8 (TASR) – For the People head Veronika Remisova stated on Wednesday that she views the departure of Justice Minister Maria Kolikova’s faction from the party as a betrayal of the party’s values and all its members.

Remisova lambasted the defectors for holding talks on joining other parties while wanting to hold on to the posts that they’ve acquired thanks to For the People. “Although they’d been denying it publicly and were misleading everyone, Maria Kolikova’s faction spent a long time looking for a way to damage For the People and keep their posts at the same time, posts they occupied thanks to the party and its members. The transfer of Maria Kolikova’s group to Freedom and Solidarity [SaS] is a betrayal of the hundreds of members of the For the People party, thanks to whom the group hold posts in the Government and Parliament. It’s a betrayal of the supporters of the party, who gave [the defectors] their votes based on For the People’s election programme,” reads Remisova’s statement.

Nevertheless, Remisova wished her former colleagues all the best. “We believe that now that the group has found a new party, it will focus more on work and less on quarrels and politicking. It will have to, as SaS has long-standing experience with internal factions,” she remarked.

“The members of Kolikova’s group were given a mandate by people to promote the agenda of the For the People Party, not an agenda of neoliberal ideology … On the contrary, we promised people that we wouldn’t engage in ideological battles, we promised that we’d focus on work and on sensible measures that wouldn’t divide an already very divided society,” said the For the People leader, adding that her party will now promote its values with even more determination.