Fico says Transparency Int. is not transparent

Former PM Robert Fico has taken the recently published Corruption Perception Index (CPI)  of Transparency International personally, seeing the comments of the Slovak branch as an attack on his government.

Fico’s Smer-SD party therefore plans to write an official protest to the NGO corruption watchdog Transparency International in Berlin against its Slovak branch, accusing it of cronyism and political affinity. Fico said he regards Transparency International Slovensko is a purely political institution, accusing it of being run by people around the ruling SDKU party.

Fico pointed to Emilia Sicakova-Beblava as an example. She was the head of Transparency International from 1998 to 2009 and is married to Miroslav Beblavy from the SDKU party. In reaction Mrs. Beblava said Transparency International Slovensko is a professional, non-partisan organisation and that she was not aware of any political favouritism from the organisation.

Talking about how Slovakia had slipped 5 places in the corruption ranking, head of TIS Gabriel Sipos blamed this on the government of Robert Fico due to a lack of transparency in tenders and the judiciary, among other things.