SaS MP Igor Matovic , who has no problem expressing his opinion loud and clear, spoke out in parliament yesterday agaisnt former PM Robert Fico, comparing him to the likes of Stalin and Hitler.
Matovic called Fico a common crook before asking the rhetorical questions: “How he is he different from Stalin or Hitler? Didn’t they use the same kind of brainwashing? Didn’t they abuse the blind trust of their sheep and contort facts? He then said that ‘our crook’ was no different from how they used and abused.
As expected, Matovic was then the target of an onslaught of abusive remarks from Fico’s Smer-SD party colleagues, calling him an idiot and a liar (Peter Suca), a disgrace to the status of MP like never seen before (Pavol Goga), and as being the real crook here as someone who committed a multi-million tax fraud in his business (Jan Podmanicky).
Podmanicky continued to allege that Matovic had influenced the tax office and also not paid students for distributing his flyers, among other things, adding that Matovic could look a crook in the eye every morning in the mirror.
Head of the session Bela Bugar called for more civil behaviour and for order. Robert Fico himself refused to comment on the insults from Matovic.
I’m a liberal by instinct but nothing SaS have done alters my opinion that they are utterly, utterly out of their depth. These puerile comments from Mr Matovic are yet another example. I’m no fan of Fico but the question ‘how is he different from Hitler or Stalin?’ manages to be both insulting and very easy to respond to. Slovakia needs a secular, liberal party but one that also combines decency and competence. SaS are light years away.