The government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) has lost touch with reality in Slovakia, looking on passively as unemployment and corruption grow rapidly, and burdening Slovakia with heavy debts, said representatives of the main opposition party, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) at a press conference on February 24, the TASR newswire wrote.
“The prime minister is going round on his inspection days at the ministries ... back-slapping and talking about how everything is just fine,” said SDKÚ vice chair Iveta Radičová, as quoted by TASR, stressing that her party gained a totally different view when travelling around the country and talking to ordinary Slovaks.
SDKÚ vice chair Ivan Mikloš presented a new website, www.oklamali.sk, on which the party listed what it calls Smer’s unfulfilled pre-election pledges and promises stated in the government manifesto. The promises of other coalition parties are not included in the list called ‘they have lied’ as SDKÚ views Smer as the dominant party and the one that determines Slovakia’s development.
Among the most serious charges, Mikloš highlighted Fico’s claim that unemployment in Slovakia has grown in line with the EU average. Based on available data, unemployment in Slovakia has increased at a rate that is 115 percent higher than the EU average. Mikloš noted that Fico rejects criticism that the government is encumbering Slovakia with debts and claims another especially serious neglected promise concerns corruption.
According to data provided by Transparency International cited by SDKÚ, corruption grew faster in 2008 than it did in the era of former Prime Minister and HZDS chairman Vladimír Mečiar in 1990-1998. Conversely, Mikloš said corruption levels fell under SDKÚ-led government of Mikulas Dzurinda (1998-2006). TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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