Dozens of bananas were thrown and firecrackers banged in front of Presidential Palace on January 27 in Bratislava, as participants of the protest march Gorilla expressed their dissatisfaction with the current political situation in the country. There were different estimations concerning the attendance: while there were around 800 people at the beginning of the march on SNP Square, main organiser Lucia Gallová told TASR that more demonstrators may have been at the rally in fact.
"Some claim that 10,000, some claim that 1,000, but I know that we had 2,000 candles and they were all distributed," Gallová said, indicating that there should be another protest next week.
The Gorilla Protest rallied against political corruption in Slovakia as indicated by the alleged Gorilla wiretapping documents. The protestors left the Parliament building dirty of broken eggs and bananas, and with banners glued on the walls, TASR reported.
Despite the organisers’ appeal to politicians not to participate, they were outraged to find that some representatives of political parties came to support the protest in person, anyway.
"It's the run-up to election,” said one of the organisers Robert Mihály. “A good way [for politicians] to get positive attention, of course. However, they should respect that this is a civic protest and politics has no place here.”
