The police did not manage to complete their investigation into the authenticity of the signatures on the registration petition for the 99 Percent – Civic Voice party, Police Corps President Jaroslav Spišiak announced on March 9, one day before the general election. He said they had not been able to contact all the people on the petition, the Sme daily reported. Doubts were raised about the authenticity of the signatures after one of the people paid to collect them complained about malpractice.
At the end of February Spišiak was quoted as saying that the police had already checked 70 percent of the signatures. However, he later said that officers had only tried to contact 70 percent of the people whose signatures were found on the petition.
“But that does not mean that we have got in touch with them,” he said, as quoted by Sme, adding that they could not find the majority of the signatories.
He added that some people either did not want to say whether they had signed the 99 Percent petition, or could not remember signing it. Moreover, police officers could not find some people as they are currently living abroad.
Spišiak said that the police were prepared to continue checking the signatures after the election, Sme wrote. 99 Percent received fewer than 2 percent of the votes in Saturday's election, well under the 5-precent threshold required to win seats in parliament.
Representatives of the 99 Percent movement stated that the signatures were in order and that any problems must have been the result of manipulation after the petition was lodged with the Interior Ministry, the SITA newswire reported.
Sources: Sme, SITA
For more information about this story please see: Police check 99 Percent’s petition
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
