Former Communist Party member Dagmar Bollová on January 20 became the first official candidate for the 2009 presidential election in Slovakia by submitting her petition sheets to Parliamentary Chairman Pavol Paška.
Bollová said she had personally collected approximately 10,000 out of the 15,000 signatures required. "I regard it as undignified when somebody uses state or party-administration reserves for collecting signatures," Bollová told the TASR newswire, adding that she spoke personally to every single person who signed her sheets. The remaining signatures were collected by Bollová's friends, as she hasn't received any support from her former party.
Bollová said that her campaign for the election on March 21 would be modest, based on personal meetings with the public, and that one of its goals would be to invite people to the ballots. When asked why she submitted her petition sheets before any other candidates, she answered that it behoved her to do so as her name comes first according to alphabetical order. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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