OĽaNO's Fiat 500 cars in the town of Bardejov, eastern Slovakia. (source: TASR)
Questions have been raised over the use of a fleet of iconic Italian cars Fiat 500 in the OĽaNO party's election campaign.
Party leader Igor Matovič brought almost 50 of the vehicles to Bardejov, eastern Slovakia, to launch a competition for voters allowing them to use the cars for years.
People who fill in a form on the party's website (in Slovak) and get others to register as OĽaNO volunteers, will get a chance to win a prize allowing them to drive one of the cars for the next four years.
Despite the fact that the party is clearly using "more than 80 cars" in the campaign, it does not intend to include them in their election campaign expenses.
Legally, every party is obliged to have a transparent campaign account, but Matovič has said the cars will remain owned by the party, and therefore do not need to include them in expenses.
He has not said how much the party paid for the cars, nor how many were bought. Based on estimates, OĽaNO may have paid at least €790,000 for all the cars.
"We like to drop A-bombs and rarities such as this," says Matovič about the purchase. Over the weekend, the cars appeared in 13 social media posts.
If the party were to include the sum in its campaign expenses, it would account for more than a third of the entire campaign budget cap of €3 million.
Transparency International Slovakia (TIS), which monitors campaign financing, said Matovič's interpretation of law was questionable at the least.
"It seems to me that OĽaNO may be trying to find a way to legally get around the campaign financing cap," says TIS analyst Ľuboš Kostelanský.
However, according to Interior Ministry, which oversees party spending in campaigns, OĽaNO is not in danger of being sanctioned. A political party is not obliged to include property in expenses if it will be used outside the election campaign.
Igor Matovič in Bardejov. (source: TASR)
