RÓBERT Nemcsics, a former member of the Alliance of the New Citizen (ANO), is setting up a new civic-liberal party with the working name Liga (League). A former economy minister in the Mikuláš Dzurinda government, Nemcsics announced at a press conference on September 28 in Trenčianske Teplice that prospective party members had officially started a campaign to collect the signatures needed to establish a political party, the SITA newswire wrote.
According to unconfirmed reports, they already have half the 10,000 signatures needed to register a party in Slovakia. Nemcsics hopes to register the party within six weeks.
The ambition of the new party is to connect orthodox and leftist liberals, as well as civic activitists. Publicist Eduard Chmelár and activist Oľga Pietruchová are members of the preparatory committee. A former defence minister and ex-member of the Slovak Democratic and Catholic Union (SDKÚ), Juraj Liška, is also active in the new grouping.
One of the party’s first proposals is to change the election law in order to extend the right to vote to 16- and 17-year olds. In general, it wants to be a modern alternative for disenchanted voters, according the news channel TA3.
