Slovak political parties are said to have bought the votes of Romani voters in the recent parliamentary elections for anywhere between three and 10 euro. František Tanko, chair of the Roma Union civic association in Slovakia, made the allegations at a press conference in Bratislava but did not present any evidence. The Roma Coalition Party, which did not succeed during the 12 June elections, also brought up the controversial practice recently.
Tanko said Roma votes had been “bought on a large scale”, especially in central and eastern Slovakia, specifically in the towns of Revúca, Kecerovce, Banská Bystrica, Košice, Spišská Nová Ves and Prešov. Slovakia has a Roma community of about half a million. Tanko claims several thousand Roma were involved.
Roma are said to have received instructions at the entrance to the polling place as to which party’s number to put in the ballot envelope. They then had to deliver their unused party lists to the buyer to prove they had obeyed the instructions. Tanko described the process: "The voter drops the right number in and then goes to the person who is supposed to pay, he checks that no other party list was submitted, pays up, and the voter leaves.” The amount of compensation was said to depend on the party’s ambitions.
Even though Tanko had originally planned to provide photographs and sound recordings at the press conference, in the end he presented no evidence. He also would not say which political parties had bought the Roma votes. "They include parties that never visited these Roma," he said.
Tanko said he had decided not to present the evidence because he did not want to endanger the volunteers who had helped gather information about the practices. "I don’t want anything to happen to anyone in this country… I would be putting many people in danger,” he said.
The buying of Roma votes has been raised as an issue in previous parliamentary, regional and local elections. After last year’s elections of regional leaders (district administrators), the police investigated several reports of fraud in Levoča and in Stará Ľubovňa. The charges have yet to be proven.
