In front of the building of the National Council (NR) of the Slovak Republic, an opposition protest is being held on Tuesday evening against the proposal for changes in voting from abroad in the parliamentary elections. Deputies are supposed to deal with the proposal at the current meeting. The protest was called by the opposition PS and he was joined by the opposition KDH, SaS and the non-parliamentary party Democrats.
Representatives of compatriots welcome the protest. They appeal to MPs not to vote for obstacles to the exercise of the right to vote and to protect the integrity of the electoral process for all SR citizens without distinction.
“Robert Fico wants to cement himself in power,” declared PS leader Michal Šimečka. According to him, it is necessary to do everything so that the law does not pass. “Slovakia cannot become Fico’s autocracy,” he noted. In addition to Bratislava, on Tuesday evening, protests against the proposed changes in elections from abroad were also announced in in Košice, Banská Bystrica, Prague and Brussels.
Some compatriot associations pointed out that the possibility to vote by mail is not a privilege of any party, but a necessary tool of a modern state that values its citizens and wants to stay in touch with them. They warn that the change of voting by mail to voting at embassies represents an insurmountable logistical barrier for thousands of citizens.
“For short trips abroad, it is unlikely that a citizen will have time to travel to the nearest embassy, especially in countries where Slovakia does not have diplomatic representation. We perceive such a step as directly making access to the ballot box more difficult and weakening democratic participation,” they pointed out. They added that the proposal to cancel the election by mail goes directly against the interests of citizens and ignores more than 100,000 signatures in petitions, which in recent years demanded the exact opposite – the modernization and expansion of the election by mail.
On Tuesday afternoon, the MPs started the 49th parliamentary session, at which, among other things, they are supposed to deal with several coalition proposals regarding the adjustment of elections. Smer-SD came up with an amendment to the law on conditions for exercising the right to vote. He has to introduce himself a new way of voting abroad, according to the new system, it would be possible to vote at representative offices, not by mail.
At the same time, it should expand the possibility of voting from abroad also for presidential elections. The amendment also changes the amount of the electoral deposit for the elections to the Slovak Republic and the European Parliament. Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Tibor Gašpar (Smer-SD) defended the intention to replace voting by mail with voting at embassies due to fear of election manipulation also through postal ballot voting.
In February, the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic Robert Fico (Smer-SD) called it correct that Slovaks who live abroad and want to vote should visit the designated polling station. Either at the embassy, consulate or at another designated place, they took the envelope with the ballots and edited the ballot behind a curtain in the voting booth in private without being influenced. According to the prime minister, this is what democratic, direct and secret elections should look like.
