According to Glatzova & Co. Partner Veronika Pazmanyova, “surprisingly, just three days before the February 29 election the Slovak parliament approved a 13th pension wage and rejected the Istanbul Treaty.” According to her, “despite this clear political corruption, the ruling party, SMER, was not able to secure victory and were beaten by the anticorruption Ordinary People party led by Igor Matovic, who will presumably be the new Slovak Prime Minister.” Matovic received 25% of the votes, despite having only around 5% support in the autumn polls, Pazmanyova reports.
“SMER has been linked to multiple scandals for last couple of years,” Pazmanyova says, “which generated a massive response in civic society and, in 2018 and 2019, led to the biggest country-wide demonstrations in Slovakia’s modern history of Slovakia.” According to her, “this ultimately forced the Prime Minister Robert Fico and the Minister of Interior Robert Kalinak to step down.” Led by current Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, and despite winning the last five elections, SMER placed second, with 18.29% of the vote, "and will now be forced to parliamentary opposition."
"The change of the government will be refreshing and much needed,“ Pazmanyova says. “The trust in institutions, justice, and police must be restored.” She attributes the high turnout for the election – 65.8%, the highest in nearly two decades – to the increased interest of Slovakians in public affairs following the February 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancé, which sparked the massive protests.
Pazmanyova is encouraged by the rise of democratic civic society in Slovakia. “This brings me hope,” she says. “In order for society to work, people must engage on the local level and may not be ignorant to any form of injustice. After all, we form the society we want to live in.”
In the meantime, she says, the prosecution for those responsible for Kuciak’s murder is moving forward. “To prove guilt, the prosecution has used modern technological evidence, supported by huge amount of metadata including geolocation, encrypted Threema communication, and views of Facebook profiles of the victims prior to the murder. From a lawyer’s perspective this is quite interesting, as it widens the techniques traditionally used by the police and may surprise unsuspecting offenders."
Turning to business, Pazmanyova says that “2019 was a great year for our clients, leading to nice M&A deals for us, including several notable transactions in the telecommunications sector.” There is a significant amount of both institutional and individual investment, she reports, meaning that there is “a lot of money in the market.” She adds that “2019 saw the rise of the local entrepreneurs, as many local projects were in the center of attention. Many owners sold their businesses, and reinvested the money both locally and abroad."
