At SaS's founding congress in Bratislava on 28 February 2009, Sulík was elected as Chairman and Jana Kiššová as General Manager. SaS selected economist Ján Oravec, to be its candidate for the 2009 European Parliament election in Slovakia.[24] The party supported the SDKÚ–DS candidate Iveta Radičová in the 2009 Slovak presidential election in March and April; she was defeated in the second round.[citation needed] With others, Sulík was approached by Declan Ganley to join the Libertas.eu alliance of Eurosceptic parties for the European elections but turned down the invitation in order to remain independent. While he was also a sceptic of the Lisbon Treaty and more generally a critic of European intransparency and bureaucracy, he did not share the isolationist position of Libertas. In the 2009 European Parliament election, SaS received 4.7% of the votes, just missing the 5% election threshold; SDKÚ–DS accused SaS of unnecessarily furthering the fragmentation of the political right in Slovakia. In the 2009 Slovak regional elections, SaS won one seat in Bratislava.[citation needed]
2009 referendum and 2010 parliamentary election
In late 2009, SaS promoted a referendum striving for major cuts to politicians' privileges. The demands included downsizing the Slovak parliament from 150 to 100 MPs, scrapping their immunity from criminal prosecution and limits to be placed on the public finances spent on government officials' cars. Furthermore, they demanded that the radio and television market should be further liberalized, abolishing concessionary fees, and public officials' right to comment and reply to media coverage should be removed from the press law.[25] In January 2010, SaS announced that by the end of 2009 it had managed to collect the 350,000 signatures needed in order to call a referendum. SaS forwarded the signatures to the Slovak president Ivan Gašparovič, requesting him to schedule the referendum for the date of the parliamentary election on 12 June 2010.[26]
In March 2010, people reported Sulík to the police for the content of the manifesto for the 2010 Slovak parliamentary election, arguing that the party's manifesto commitment to legalisation of cannabis constituted the criminal offence of "spread of addiction".[27] This was thrown out by the prosecutors, who refused to press charges.[28] The party's candidates were the most open about the state of their personal wealth.[29] In the election to the National Council, SaS received 12.1%, coming third, and won 22 seats. The party was the only one in opposition that took votes from Direction – Social Democracy (Smer–SD),[18] although it was estimated that more of its votes came from former SDKÚ–DS voters.[30]
The party entered into coalition negotiations with three centre-right parties, namely the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ–DS), Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and Most–Híd. The parties agreed a common programme and allocated ministries, with SaS controlling four ministries as well as choosing the Speaker of the National Council. During the negotiations, Igor Matovič, one of the four MPs elected on the SaS list from the Ordinary People faction, alleged that he had been offered a bribe to destabilise the talks, prompting Sulík to make a formal complaint to the prosecutor.[31] On 29 June 2010, the President decided that the 2009 referendum petition met the requirements and the vote would go ahead on 18 September 2010.[32] Four of the six issues in the referendum were part of the agreed programme of the new coalition government.[33] In the 2010 Slovak political reform referendum, the turnout fell far below the 50% required.[citation needed]
2012 and 2016 parliamentary elections
In February 2011, Igor Matovič was ejected from the caucus for voting for Smer–SD's proposed restrictions on dual nationality.[34] Ordinary People filed to become an independent political party on 28 October 2011 and run as a separate list, along with two small conservative parties. In the 2012 Slovak parliamentary election, SaS received 5.9% of the vote, placing it the sixth-largest party in the National Council with 11 deputies.[citation needed] In the 2014 European Parliament election in Slovakia, SaS came in sixth place nationally, receiving 6.7% of the vote and had one member elected as a Member of the European Parliament.[35] In the 2016 Slovak parliamentary election, the party received 12.1% of the vote, coming in as the second-largest party in the National Council with 21 deputies, exceeding expectations and making it the most successful election in SaS history.[citation needed]
2020 and 2022 parliamentary elections
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2024)
In the European Parliament, SaS is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR group), which does not completely reject the idea of common Europe; party members consider the EU to be a good project, which requires reforms. As a response to Brexit, the party prepared a manifesto with several proposals to reform the European Union.[72]
^Parliamentary group of SaS has 11 members but only 9 members are members of the party. In the parliamentary group there is also 1 independent and 1 from Civic Conservative Party.
^"Political parties and elections in Slovakia". Online Slovakia. Retrieved 24 September 2021. Sloboda a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity, Ideology : centre-right classical liberal political party, founded in 2009).
^"Fresh air". The Economist. 17 June 2010. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
^ abJust, Petr; Kukovič, Simona, eds. (2022). "Acknowledgements". The Rise of Populism in Central and Eastern Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 158. ISBN9781802205534.
^Malová, Darina (2013). "Slovakia". In De Waele, Jean-Michel; Escalona, Fabien; Vieira, Mathieu (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Social Democracy in the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 560. ISBN978-1137293800.[permanent dead link]