BRATISLAVA, October 23, (WEBNOVINY) – Chairman of the SMER-SD party Robert Fico admits certain frustration in the party from going into the opposition. “Let us be a bit human and realize that 97 percent of the public in Slovakia expected that SMER would be in the government. So we certainly were taken aback by the result for several hours,” said Fico in an interview for SITA news agency.
According to the former prime minister, SMER-SD quickly realized after the elections that it would be in opposition to the ruling center-right coalition. Fico claims that his party has clear values and they want a social state. “What does Ms. Radicova have? Let someone explain that to me,” he stated. Fico went on to say that at least the SMER-SD clearly identified the alternative on which it ruled for four years: “Social state, social standards, effective social state, controlling, regulating, This is our philosophy, which we actually pushed for,” stated Fico. According to him, the four-member center-right coalition does not know what politics it wants to do. “So I consider the first 100 days in the opposition for SMER as very good, as people can very quickly compare again how we ruled and what these are going to do,” he said.
Fico pointed out that his government did not have any reason to increase prices, but the incumbent government is raising prices. “We did not privatize, they are going to privatize. Moreover, they substantially lied before the elections, because we have everything recorded, what Ms. Radicova Mr. Miklos, and others were saying. There are clear statements, we will never privatize. I open the government’s program declaration, bang, privatization. We will never increase taxes, bang, the value-added tax, and more and more things,” he said.
Fico does not think that this government will end prematurely. “It is inertia. When the ship picks up speed, it takes very long until it stops on the sea. Inertia in the politics is sometimes incredible and a number of examples demonstrate it in our Slovak political history, too. I rather estimate that this chaos will continue, as there are too many of them, they cannot agree about everything. The policy of raising prices will continue, as they have no other alternative, and objectively some public responses have to come to that. It is not possible that after one hundred days of the new government, unionists have already held three anti-governmental gatherings in Kosice, Zilina, and Bratislava. That is impossible,” concluded Fico.
SITA
