Smer-SD wants to win its fifth election and form government

The governing Smer-SD party intends to win the general election for the fifth time in 2020 and form another government. The party's chair Robert Fico stated this in his opening speech at the Smer-SD congress held in Trenčín on Saturday. Fico also acknowledged that such plan would call for personnel changes and self-reflection. At the same time, the Smer-SD chair sees nothing offered by opposition that could make him nervous in achieving his plan. "The only programme of the opposition is to criminalize the governing coalition; their only programme is to put all of us behind bars," claimed Fico, adding that the party lately survived several blows, following the murder of the journalist Kuciak and his fiancée. Smer-SD also wants to re-institute the right to reply for public officials and adopt measures to ban internet discussions in the media on an anonymous basis. According to Robert Fico, the responsibility should be shouldered by publishers, who host such discussions in the comments sections of their news articles.