House overrides Čaputová's veto and extends moratorium

House overrides Čaputová's veto and extends moratorium

The ban on publishing opinion polls before elections will be extended from the current 14 days to 50, as Parliament overrode the veto by President Zuzana Čaputová and passed the bill a second time on Tuesday. If it goes unchallenged, the legislation will apply already to next year's parliamentary elections in February. President Čaputová, however - who believes that the bill flies in the face of the right to information and the right to assemble - has promised to challenge its constitutionality at the Constitutional Court as soon as possible. She also said that she will ask for a suspension of its effect, given the possibility that the Constitutional Court may not manage to reach a verdict in time for the February election.

According to the bill's supporters, the outcomes of public opinion polls are often influenced by political parties, with similar polls - even conducted within the same period - often producing significantly different figures, leaving voters confused. "We hold the view that the bill doesn't restrict the voters' right to information, but on the contrary, represents an effort to protect voters from disinformation and tendentious information," claim those who submitted it. Speaking in support of the bill, former prime minister and current Smer-SD chair Robert Fico stated that if the president moves to challenge its constitutionality in court, this would represent a failure on her part to appreciate political reality. Meanwhile Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, himself a Smer-SD party member, and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák, a Smer-SD nominee, have both criticised the extended moratorium.

Opposition leaders have also voiced criticism of the bill. "We believe that the bill won't really resolve the problem they claim to address, as polls might still be released, for instance, in the Czech Republic or Hungary," stated We Are Family caucus chair Peter Pčolinský, who believes the legislation breaches the right to information. "Parties of the governing coalition are concerned by their decreasing polls and don't want people to find this out before the election," claimed For the People party vice-chair Veronika Remišová. Meanwhile others find the bill not only senseless and self-serving, but oppressive as well. "Thirty years since abolishing censorship, it has crept back into Slovakia," claimed Parliamentary Vice-chair Martin Klus (SaS), while OLaNO leader Igor Matovič compared the move to the tactics of totalitarianism, which "had a tendency to ban people from thinking [and] from receiving information."

Jonathan McCormick, Photo: TASR

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