MANY political parties hired companies and agencies for their June general election campaigns that were related to party members or had received state contracts before, according to the Pravda daily.
The former ruling SDKÚ party hired the Slovenská Mediálna Agentúra (Slovak Media Agency) to do its billboards, the same agency that received an order from the Government Office to promote Slovakia's EU entry in 2004.
The I-Step company worked for the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK), having also carried out an advertising campaign worth several million crowns for the Agriculture Ministry under the leadership of the SMK's Zsolt Simon.
Smer cooperated with the Uptown production agency, whose statutory representative, Igor Kováč, served in the same company as Smer's current deputy chairwoman, Monika Beňová.