A BREAKAWAY group of former Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) MPs is launching a new political party.On July 15, the founding committee of the Conservative Democrats of Slovakia (KDS) submitted a petition with 10,600 signatures and draft party statutes to the Interior Ministry, meeting the basic conditions to become a political party, the SITA newswire wrote.
The first goals of the new party will be to win a place in parliament in the next general election and to get their own candidate into the second round of the Slovak presidential election next year.
The party says it is open to all who respect Christian, traditional and conservative values with particular emphasis on individual freedom.
The KDS is already preparing its nominating petition for the presidential election. Vladimír Palko, one of the party’s founding members, told SITA that the candidate will be František Mikloško, who ran unsuccessfully in the last presidential race.
Four prominent former members of the KDH - Palko, Mikloško, Pavol Minárik and Rudolf Bauer - left the KDH on February 21 because of what they called its deviation from Christian Democratic ideals.
All four remain independent parliamentary deputies.
