SMER: NOT A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRATISLAVA 000540 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/28/2017 TAGS: EAGR ECON PGOV PHUM PREL SENV LO SUBJECT: SMER: NOT A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY REF: A. A) BRATISLAVA 389 ¶B. B) BRATISLAVA 462 Classified By: Ambassador Rodolphe M. Vallee for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary. Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer party has introduced a range of measures this year to reduce public input into government decision making processes and otherwise curb the rights of individuals within society. Though Smer labels itself as a social democratic party, its civic governance initiatives have been designed to either promote connected business interests or appeal to nationalist tendencies. Stakeholders that might be considered 'center-left' in another context -- such as environmental groups, open society advocates, social liberals, and human rights advocates -- have been antagonized or ignored. Smer has not been hurt politically by this approach; rather, it has bolstered the party's popularity with its target audience of middle-income, middle-aged, socially conservative Slovaks. End Summary. Image versus Reality -------------- ¶2. (C) Since the current ruling coalition was formed last summer, Bratislava elites have worried that Slovakia would slide toward socialism (Smer),nationalism (SNS), authoritarianism (HZDS) and corruption (all of the above). Local media coverage of each party reflects these pre-conceived notions, meaning that Smer Minister of Labor Viera Tomanova's big government policy proposals and minor scandals dominate the headlines, while other Smer proposals fly under the radar. In practice, Smer has made only cosmetic changes to economic policy, mostly because business interests from within Smer or concerns from coalition partners weaken the proposals drafted by Smer's social democratic wing before they ever get to Parliament. Tomanova's labor code reform proposal was reduced to a shell of itself before passage (reftel A) and her social insurance reform package is headed to a similar fate (reftel B). Meanwhile, Smer has been more effective quietly advancing the type of civil governance policy proposals expected from SNS or HZDS. Closing Open Society (Smer, not HZDS) -------------- ¶3. (C) Smer has been quite active and increasingly creative in its efforts to reduce access to public information. In February, Smer MP Edita Angyalova introduced a party-backed amendment to restrict Slovakia's freedom of information laws so that the government would only have to respond to "reasonable requests." The proposal ignited immediate, vocal opposition, including indications by coalition partner HZDS that it would not support the bill, which caused Angyalova to withdraw her initiative. Angyalova later explained that the Smer-appointed Director of the Tax Office, Richard Sulaj, drafted the bill in order to limit information requests. NGOs and opposition parties expect a more organized legislative attempt this fall to limit freedom of information (FOI) laws, this time with buy-in from HZDS. These fears appeared to be confirmed in late August when Minister of Justice Stefan Harabin (HZDS) announced he would introduce legislation this fall amending FOI laws "to help blind people." In September, coalition partner spokesman Rafael Rafaj (SNS) praised Harabin's initiative, saying it would allow space for a "needed re-evaluation of FOI laws." ¶4. (C) Learning from the public spectacle created by the Angyalova bill, in mid-2007 Smer began quietly tucking amendments to curtail public input and access to information into broader highway construction, forestry and nature protection bills considered and subsequently passed by Parliament. Provisions within each bill amended statutes that require relevant state agencies to respond to information requests by individual citizens and interest groups, inserting language that allows the government to identify stakeholders who can formally request information. These bills also eliminated statutes that allow citizens and groups to file administrative claims when the government is not following proper procedures, replacing them with provisions that will only allow administrative claims by individuals already harmed by a government action. President Gasparovic signed the highway construction and forestry laws earlier this year but declined to sign the nature protection law for unrelated reasons. Gasparovic's veto of the nature protection law was overturned in September, with many opposition politicians voting with the coalition. This fall, the Ministry of Environment is preparing similar legislation regarding waterways and waste management. Not a Bunch of Crunchy Tree Huggers -------------- ¶5. (C) Smer's initiatives to limit public input in the governance process often benefit connected business interests. Since Smer's social democratic platform precludes introducing legislation designed to create a generally more favorable business climate, the party supports business through ministerial rulemaking and contract awards -- and the less publicly known about the details, the better. This governance model can be seen across the ministries, but environmental issues make a particularly good case study since the GOS has recently revised several key laws. Smer's major environmental policymakers include: - Dusan Munko, State Secretary, Ministry of Environment, also owner of an exotic species import-export company (see paragraph 11); - Peter Ziga, State Secretary, Ministry of Economy, responsible for alternative energy development policy, also owner of a wood-trading company. - MP Marian Zahumensky, who resigned as Ministry of Agriculture State Secretary in November 2006 due to corruption concerns but who maintains his seat in Parliament, where he has shepherded passage of major environmental policy reforms. ¶6. (C) In the High Tatras - Slovakia's natural showpiece, still recovering from the 2004 windstorm that destroyed 13,000 hectares of trees - Smer officials have consolidated control over nature protection policy and squelched dissenting views. In March, after a bitter three-year intragovernmental debate on post-windstorm zoning practices, Munko and his appointee Jan Mizerak assumed control of national parks and forest protection services. Munko and Mizerak promptly fired all park directors nationwide, including Tatra NP Director Tomas Vancura and Deputy Director Juraj Svajda (both recent USG IV program participants),who were skeptical of forest removal plans in windstorm-affected areas. Shortly thereafter, the Ministry began downsizing staff, scheduling for gradual elimination the positions of at least 60 of the 140-plus state forestry employees (mainly rangers or inspectors) who had signed a technical statement in late 2006 opposing the Ministry's proposal for forest removal in the Tatras. On May 23, the GOS announced its new zoning plan, which would open many areas of the recently cleared areas in the Western Tatras for new ski resorts and other development. The European Union responded with a statement declaring that Slovakia's plan had been illegal due to lack of scientific peer review and an adequate public comment process. ¶7. (C) Protests against the government's Tatra policy, though mild, have moved the government to take strong steps to crack down on dissenters. In June, park officials assessed unprecedentedly high trespassing fines (1000 to 3000 USD per person) to 64 protestors demonstrating peacefully on park grounds. In August, the government approved Ministry of Environment-backed legislation that will require the faces of demonstrators to be fully visible so that they can be identified. The legislation contains other provisions that would enable officials to threaten or punish protest organizers on the basis of vaguely defined breaches. For example, if an event is deemed to lack a sufficient number of organizers, hefty fines may be imposed. Also, as a means of restricting access, in August the government passed legislation to require bicycles to stay on cleared, designated paths, which do not exist in the contested Ticha Dolina area or most of the Tatras. ¶8. (C) The direct beneficiaries of GOS Tatra policy include political appointees such as State Secretary Ziga and major financial backers of Smer. While Ziga was serving as chairman of an Economy Ministry committee that recommended the eventually adopted zoning changes, his wood trading company, Taper, received from the Ministry of Agriculture an estimated 30 percent increase in wood harvesting allowances from the Tatras. Ziga never recused himself as owner of the company before obtaining the contracts, which, according to Transparency International, were not open to competitive bidding. Rezoning in the Western Tatras will also allow J&T Finance, a major developer in the Tatra region (and in Bratislava),to go ahead with plans to build a new ski centre in the previously undeveloped Brestova-Salatin area. Of the major investment groups in Slovakia, J&T has been most careful to cultivate a fruitful relationship with Smer. (For example, one of the J&T directors, Robert Hancak, was named General Director of the Economic Section at the Smer-run Ministry of Interior.) Also, rumors of increased Russian investment in the Western Tatras are widespread, but concrete information is hard to come by. In any case, media coverage of Smer's policies in the Tatras or the beneficiaries is nearly non-existent. Foreigners, Religions, and Minorities (Smer, not SNS) -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) Private media outlets -- which are almost uniformly hostile to Fico and biased against him -- have much more eagerly followed the governing coalition's treatment of minorities. Journalists tend to focus, however, on the buffoonish antics of SNS leader Jan Slota of the Ministry of Interior's ugly mismanagement of the Hedviga Malinova case. As a result they have provided very limited coverage of Smer-led legislative initiatives with a nationalist character. In May, with little public fanfare of opposition, Parliament passed new legislation to strongly tighten Slovakia's citizenship requirements. The law lengthens residency requirements for most applicants to eight years, requires fluency in the Slovak language, and withdraws the requirement for Ministry of Interior investigations to be completed within a year - meaning citizenship applications can be bureaucratically suspended in perpetuity. The new law takes effect in October. ¶10. (C) The government has also tightened standards for religious registration. In March, Parliament amended registration procedures to require that 20,000 members must provide statements of faith in order for the religion to be officially registered and recognized. (Previous law only required 20,000 signatures of citizens willing to support registration.) The new law took effect May 1. While unregistered religions are still allowed to practice freely, registration permits the right to form a legal entity, open a bank account, purchase propety for a place of worship, and officiate legally-binding wedding ceremonies, among other duties. Also, the government is obliged to pay the salaries of clergy within a registered religion. While Smer's eagerness to restrict religious group registration can be viewed as an extension of its socialist, non-religious past, the Chief of Staff at Parliament's Human Rights Committee indicated to Poloff that Catholic church officials made a specific request to Smer to introduce this legislation. In her view, Smer readily complied since they see conservative Catholics as a target voter group. Catholic officials were unhappy at recent regislation of the church of Latter Day Saints and the Bahai, among others. Why They Succeed -------------- ¶11. (C) Smer has succeeded with most of the above-described measures because coordination between opposition parties, journalists, and organized civil society -- so prevalent on core economic policy -- is dramatically weaker on other issues. Nor is the public engaged in a sustained manner. Within Parliament, SDKU concerns itself primarily with protecting its 2002-2006 economic reforms and the weaker opposition parties follow suit. Given the lack of attention to secondary issues, even SDKU -- Slovakia's most technically skilled party -- frequently votes on bills presented by Smer without fully understanding the consequences. For example, in June Zahumensky passed a bill that included a provision to enable trade in products of endangered species, explicitly breaking Slovakia's international obligations to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The bill, encouraged by State Secretary Munko for his own private benefit as an exotic species importer, was quietly vetoed by President Gasparovic the following month. While environmental groups have documented this situation for Poloff, the media never covered the issue and opposition politicians did not understand the bill until it had already reached Gasparovic's desk. Opposition parties have voted on other occasions this year for provisions they would have opposed but did not properly understand, including legislation on intellectual property rights (only in committee) and highway construction. Note: Parliament passed Munko's bill again on September 11. End Note. ¶12. (C) The government's social and law-and-order initiatives stir up almost no dissent in Parliament, since KDH tends to agree with Smer, SMK is only watching out for direct assaults against ethnic Hungarians, and SDKU rarely puts up organized resistance even though its voters tend to be increasingly socially liberal. For example, the May bill restricting religious registration passed 108-1, with only Human Rights Committee Chairman Laszlo Nagy (SMK) voting against. The citizenship requirements bill was passed with only four votes in opposition (all from SDKU) and many abstensions (mostly from SMK). ¶13. (C) Journalists and civil society, in turn, get little information from opposition parties on civil governance issues. One SITA journalist who covers Parliament told Poloff that she gets an almost-daily stream of calls and press releases from SDKU, business groups, and conservative NGOs about tax, labor, and pension policy, but couldn't find anyone from any party who could comment on nature protection law or the Tatras. Journalists and interested NGOs obtain information primarily from other contacts, such as sources in Ministries, friends in the business community, or non-partisan parliamentary committee staff. For example, the NGO Ekopolis learned about the exotic species trading bill from a friend at the Ministry of Agriculture the week after the legislation had been passed in Parliament. Effect on Smer -------------- ¶14. (C) While Smer is widely derided by Bratislava liberals and small-government conservatives for its creeping authoritarian tendencies, Fico's civil governance proposals have been well received by his primary target audience of domestic business interests and socially conservative, middle-aged Slovaks from outside Bratislava. Furthermore, Smer's unwillingness to enact major economic policy changes suggests that it understands that the party's real audience is at least moderately prosperous and not inclined to strong social democratic positions. In fact, a recent IVO poll indicated that Smer voters enjoyed the second highest incomes among Slovakia's six major parties, behind only SDKU. By appealing to middle-income Slovaks seeking economic and cultural security, Smer can gradually pick off voters from the dying HZDS and KDH parties and inch ever closer to 50 percent party preference. In this context, Fico sees no need for his "social democratic" party to support positions on social and civic governance issues that modern center-left parties have adopted throughout Europe, even though polls and anecdotal evidence suggest that support for such stances is growing in Slovakia. Smer is content to ignore progressive voters, letting most of them flock to SDKU, which will at some point face a conflict between its liberal and conservative wings. Meanwhile, Smer continues to develop as a cohesive party for middle Slovakia -- a party that is arguably in more ways right-wing than left-wing. VALLEE