The campaign is aimed at shaking Slovaks out of an election malaise conducive to low voter turnouts, which in Slovakia are notoriously among the lowest in the EU. It is designed to win over people who believe that the election is not important, that they have no party to vote for or that all politicians are the same.
“Let’s try to do something about this climate and along with famous personalities explain to people that this election is important,” said Martin Vavrinčík, who coorganised the campaign along with Matúš Vallo and Ján Orlovský as cited by the TASR newswire. “A great deal of things are influenced by politics.”
According to the organisers, the upcoming election represents an opportunity to take personal responsibility for the fate of Slovakia, to express one’s own opinions and to influence political developments.
“Surely, each of us will vote for a different party and different people we feel we can still trust, but all of us will vote with the feeling that we've done our civic minimum for the sake of a better Slovakia,” said the activists.
With 23 parties and almost 3,000 candidates running, there is an ample pool to choose from, according to Orlovský.
“We hope that many who are still undecided will make up their minds by March 5 and find a party or individuals to give their vote to,” said Orlovský.
The activists declared that the most important goal for them is to contribute to as high a turnout as possible, ideally above 60 percent.
The campaign has been joined by actors Táňa Pauhofová, Martin Huba, Petra Polnišová, Lukáš Latinák, Marian Miezga, Robert Jakab, Richard Stanke and Juraj Kemka, ice hockey player Michal Handzuš, writers Tomáš Janovic, Michal Hvorecký and Daniel Hevier and singer Katarína Koščová. It is financed via contributions from the public, with the incomes and expenditures available for public scrutiny in a transparent account.
