Sloboda a Solidarita

Sloboda a Solidarita Freedom and solidarity
Party leader	Richard Sulík
founding	February 28, 2009
Headquarters	Čajaková 18 81105 Bratislava
Alignment	Liberalism Libertarianism EU skepticism
Colours)	Green Blue
Parliament seats	13/150 ( 2020 )
MEPs	2/14 ( 2019 )
European party	European Conservatives and Reformists Party (EKR)
EP Group	European Conservatives and Reformists (EKR)
Website	strana-sas.sk

Sloboda a Solidarita (short name: SaS , German : "Freedom and Solidarity") is a political party in Slovakia . Members and supporters of the party are referred to in Slovakia as Liberáli (German “the Liberals”) or Sulíkovci (after the party chairman). The party chairman has been entrepreneur Richard Sulík since the party was founded in 2009 .

Political scientists call her liberal , libertarian and neoliberal , and she is also said to have a soft EU skepticism .

She was involved in a government for the first time from 2010 to 2012 . It was the largest opposition party in the Slovak National Council between the 2016 parliamentary elections and 2020 elections . Despite losses in 2020, it joined the newly formed center-right Matovič government .

Political orientation

According to Marek Rybář (2016), the SaS backed a libertarian campaign in the 2009 European elections and advocated economic liberalism as well as personal freedom and alternative lifestyles. In addition, Rybář attests the SaS a “soft EU skepticism”, which differs from the ethnically exclusive SNS and the traditionally conservative KDH . Erika Harris and Karen Henderson (2019) describe the SaS as "neoliberal".

According to the British newspaper The Economist , SaS is campaigning for budgetary austerity, the liberalization of drug laws and the introduction of gay marriage . It is a party critical of the EU and stands out due to its intensive and offensive use of the Internet (e.g. election campaigns in social networks).

Its economically liberal profile is reflected, among other things, in the demand for the reintroduction of a flat tax of 19% as well as in the slogan "less state - taxes down".

Referendum 2009

In 2009 SaS started a campaign for a “Referendum 2009”, which u. a. restricted the privileges of politicians: limitation of spending on company cars, abolition of political immunity , reduction of parliament from 150 to 100 seats, liberalization of the radio and television market, abolition of the "right to answer" for politicians, which has been anchored in the press law since 2008, Vote for parliamentary elections via the Internet. The referendum should be held on the date of the 2010 parliamentary or local elections. After the party had collected more than the 350,000 signatures required for a referendum in December 2009, chairman Richard Sulík announced on February 12, 2010 that the party wanted to combine the referendum with the local elections in autumn 2010. President Ivan Gašparovič set the referendum date for September 18, 2010. The referendum ultimately failed because of the low turnout of around 23%.

Elections and government participation

The party took part in the European elections on June 6, 2009. It reached 4.79% of the vote, which was not enough for a seat in the new European Parliament . In the Slovak parliamentary election on June 12, 2010 , it was the third strongest party to achieve 12.14% of the vote, which means 22 seats. This includes four MPs for the conservative-populist movement Obyčajní ľudia ("Ordinary People") who, after differences of opinion with SaS, founded their own party in late 2011 called Obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti (OĽaNO; "Ordinary people and independent people"). SaS was a coalition partner in the Iveta Radičová government , in which the party provided four ministers and one deputy prime minister ( Jozef Mihál ). Richard Sulík was President of the National Council during this time. The rejection of an expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) by SaS led to the breakup of the governing coalition in October 2011.

In the early parliamentary election on March 10, 2012 , the SaS moved into parliament as the smallest parliamentary group without OĽ members and with only 11 members (share of the vote: 5.88%). In the 2014 European elections , the SaS received 6.66% of the vote. The party leader Sulik was the only one to enter the European Parliament. He originally joined the liberal ALDE group , but switched to the conservative, EU-skeptical ECR group in October 2014 .

In the Slovak National Council election in 2016 , SaS doubled its share of the vote to 12.1% and became the second strongest force with 21 seats, albeit a long way behind the ruling Smer. Thus she was the leader of the opposition to the governments of Fico III and Pellegrini . In the 2019 European elections , SaS was able to increase the number of its seats in the European Parliament to two.

In the 2020 National Council election , however, the party fell to 6.2% of the vote and 13 seats. She participates in the center-right coalition with the election winner OĽaNO under Igor Matovič as well as Sme rodina and Za ľudí . In the Matovič government , the SaS politicians Richard Sulík are represented as deputy prime minister and minister of economics and Branislav Gröhling as minister for education and science. Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok is non-party, but was proposed by the SaS.

Overview of election results

year	choice	Share of the vote	Parliament seats	space	position
2009	European elections 2009	4.7%	0/14	7th	-
2010	National Council election 2010	12.1%	22/150	3.	Government participation
2012	National Council election 2012	5.9%	11/150	6th	opposition
2014	European elections 2014	6.7%	1/14	6th	-
2016	National Council election 2016	12.1%	21/150	2.	opposition
2019	European elections 2019	9.6%	2/13	5.	-
2020	National Council election 2020	6.2%	13/150	6th	Government participation

Individual evidence

1. ^ Marek Rybář: Slovakia. In: Donatella M. Viola (Ed.): Routledge Handbook of European Elections. Routledge, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-415-59203-1 .
2. ↑ Erika Harris, Karen Henderson: Slovakia since 1989. In: Sabrina P. Ramet, Christine M. Hassenstab (Eds.): Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989. Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 2019, ISBN 978 -1-108-49991-0 , pp. 191-220, here p. 203.
3. ↑ Slovakia's election: Another direction (English) , The Economist . May 20, 2010. Retrieved June 7, 2010. 
4. ↑ Sulíkovci predstavili program, MA 1 144 bodov. In: pravda.sk. January 11, 2020, accessed on July 13, 2020 (Slovak). 
5. ↑ Referendum 2009 committee seeks simultaneous vote with parliamentary elections (English) , The Slovak Spectator. January 26, 2010. Retrieved June 7, 2010. 
6. ↑ Sulík posúva referendum, Gašparovičovi Neveri (Slovak) , SME . February 12, 2010. Retrieved June 7, 2010. 
7. ↑ Uspeje referendum? Rozhodneme 18. septembra (Slovak) , Aktuellne.sk. July 7th, 2010. Archived from the original on July 9th, 2010 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved July 9, 2010.  
8. ↑ Referendum bolo neplatné. Prišlo 22.8 percenta voličov (Slovak) , Aktuellne.sk. Archived from the original on September 22, 2010 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 25, 2010.   
9. ↑ Pravica môže vládnuť, má o 8 kresiel viac (Slovak) , SME. Retrieved June 13, 2010.