CHAIRMAN of the Sieť party Radoslav Procházka confirmed the authenticity of the recording published earlier on July 22 on the Sme.sk website featuring a voice resembling his and containing statements that pertain to claims about murky financing of his presidential campaign. It also suggests that the campaign cost significantly more than the €250,000 he actually reported publicly.
Procházka confirmed this during a press debate broadcast by the news-only TV channel TA3.
“It is my voice, I proudly acknowledge it and my statements are quite skilfully cut and edited there,” Prochádzka said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “Matovič [leader of the opposition Ordinary People and Independent Personalities and owner of regional mailbox newspaper distributed or free, ed. note] had it prepared from the very beginning as a classical provocation.” He added that the whole recording on conditions of publishing the advertisements during the March 2014 presidential campaign (Procházka ended up third in the election) was edited by Matovič whom Procházka called “a DJ”.
Speculations about the financing of Procházka’s campaign emerged in early June when Igor Matovič, chair of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO), said Procházka attempted to purchase campaign ads from Matovič’s family-owned company, Regionpress, off the books. Procházka insists there was no talk about off the books purchase of ads, only about rebates and the way of paying. Regionpress allegedly gives 50-percent rebate to politicians, but the liberal opposition freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party has a rebate of 75 percent; and this what Procházka allegedly tried to negotiate.
Matovič insists it was not him who published the recording, complete with his written comments, on the vimeo.com website on July 22; and criticises the poor timing. He acknowledged for SITA it was him who prepared the material but added that he was waiting for the statement of general prosecutor whether people who want to nail down corrupt politicians can be prosecuted.
(Source: Sme.sk, TA3, SITA)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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