Former Slovak Prime Minister and current Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Peter Pellegrini has named his new political party ‘Voice – Social Democracy’ (Hlas – SD), explaining that he wants to build a new modern social democracy.
Pellegrini withdrew from the strongest opposition party, Direction-Social Democracy (SMER – SD) earlier this month. Along with him, another ten members of Slovak parliament left the former government party.
Explaining the basis behind his new party, Pellegrini said he wanted to build a new modern social democracy. He emphasized that they wanted to be the voice of the people forgotten by those who are in power in Slovakia today.
“We want to be a strong, but very correct opposition voice. We will support sensible solutions, but we will never allow the fight against a pandemic to be abused to curtail democratic principles and, under the guise of political demagoguery, to endanger the social security of the people,“ he emphasized.
“We will be the social democratic voice of the poor, the weak, the working and the socially deprived,” Pellegrini added.
According to the Focus agency, Pellegrini’s party could win up to 19 percent of the vote. According to the current poll, the government movement Ordinary People and Independents of Prime Minister Igor Matovic would win with 20.3 percent of the vote – Pellegrini’s party could end up in second place. According to the same survey, Robert Fico’s Direction party preferences fell to 9.5 percent.
Pellegrini left the Direction-Social Democracy (SMER – SD) over disputes with Robert Fico
“I want to prevent internal party fights, tactics, offers, and quotes. I leave the Direction-Social Democracy brand to its founding father. We also made mistakes, one of them being succumbing to the temptation of power. The failure of individuals caused the Direction brand to begin to lose its luster. I tried to provoke a discussion that something was not right,” said Pellegrini in a statement back at the beginning of June.
Pellegrini also stated that members of Direction-SD (SMER – SD) gradually stopped publicly supporting their party. “We started losing mayors who didn’t want to run under our brand again so that they would not hurt themselves.”
According to Pellegrini, Robert Fico is one of the most successful politicians in Slovakia, but he did not hide his disputes with him. “I felt that we were moving away from each other every day, our visions of the past and the future were different. It is fair not to prolong this situation any further,” concluded Pellegrini.
The opinion polls show that Pellegrini is currently the second most popular politician in Slovakia after the head of state, Zuzana Čaputová.
