THE NEW SaS party came out on top in a political openness project conducted by the Fair-Play Alliance, a political ethics watchdog, that assessed which party’s candidates were most forthcoming in providing information to voters.
All but seven SaS candidates gave information to the alliance’s online “politikaopen” project where candidates for Slovakia’s parliament were invited to publish detailed information about their property holdings, financial interests and other important data over and above the information required to be disclosed by law.
As of June 8, 161 candidates had responded, only around 6 percent of the 2,375 candidates running in the parliamentary election. Of the 161, 10 were from the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) slate, five from the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) list and one was from the Party of Democratic Left (SDĽ).
None of the parliamentary candidates from the three current ruling coalition parties listed their personal information on the website.
Zuzana Wienk of the Fair-Play Alliance said that similar projects have been effective in other countries. She said that the long-term goal of the initiative is to elect politicians who will be willing and able to push through legal initiatives making such disclosure mandatory.
The information currently required to be disclosed under Slovakia’s conflict-of-interest laws is insufficient, Wienk stated, as reported by SITA.
