Boris Kollár (Sme Rodina) (source: SITA)
Holiday pictures, reports of intelligence services and witnesses show that Sme Rodina leader Boris Kollár had contacts with the Bratislava underworld.
Yet Kollár claims he has never been involved with the mafia. He has been repeating for years that as a child he was friends with the now murdered gangland boss Peter Steinhubel, but he did not take part in his underworld activities later on.
Kollár, whose movement came in third in the February 29 election with 8.2 percent of the votes, is expected to become part of the next ruling coalition under the leadership of Igor Matovič. His past contacts are a problem for some of the potential coalition partners, most notably the Za Ľudí party of former president Andrej Kiska, which is the smallest.
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Back in 2016, Matovič said he could imagine a ruling coalition with Boris Kollár, but it would mean joining forces with a lesser evil.
Today, Matovič says he would rather take Kollár than Kiska, and that he does not read stories about Kollár's past.
"Let's not put forward demands that would block the creation of the future government," Matovič said. "Let's not be more papal than the Pope, the people have decided."
Igor Matovič (left) and Boris Kollár (right) (source: TASR)
A secret service report
Boris Kollár as a person who moved in the environment of the Bratislava mafia also became asubject of interest of the then counter-intelligence service, which was then called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Democracy.
The documents of this secret service from 1990, which the Sme daily received during the 2016 election, mention Kollár as the dogsbody of then dealer of under-the-counter goods, Peter Steinhübel.
