Kotlebists – People's Party Our Slovakia (, ĽSNS) is a far-right, neo-Nazi political party in Slovakia. The party claims to derive its origin from the legacy of Andrej Hlinka and Jozef Tiso.
Positioned on the far-right of the political spectrum, Kotlebists – People's Party Our Slovakia's political platform describes itself as an anti-establishment, anti-oligarchic party. Opposition to the party have described their party as fascist, expressing xenophobic and antiziganist rhetoric. Some key policies of the party include interest-free national loans, replacement of the euro currency with the Slovak koruna, strengthening of law and order, rejection and criminalization of same-sex civil unions and LGBT rights, and strong anti-establishment sentiment, most notably against Slovakia's current foreign and domestic policy.
The party proposes to reduce the number of MPs from 150 to 100, restrict the expression of "degenerate material" in media, establish a home guard militia with the goal of cracking down on "gypsy criminality", promote a corporatist mixed economy, prohibit abortion conducted in the second and third trimester, institute a national health service, subsidize families in accordance to their fertility and race, and withdraw the Slovak military from foreign operations. In addition, it advocates for Slovakia's departure from the European Union, the European Monetary Union, and NATO; instead favouring closer ties with the Russian Federation and the CSTO.
Party's names : Party of the Friends of Wine () : People's Party of Social Solidarity () : People's Party Our Slovakia () : Kotleba – People's Party Our Slovakia () From : Kotlebists – People's Party Our Slovakia ()
History The origins of the party are closely related to the ultra-nationalist Slovak Togetherness organization, which has been accused by opposition of holding racist and anti-semitic positions. The members of the movement tried to run in the 2006 elections under the name Slovak Togetherness – National Party, which was forcibly dissolved by the Supreme Court on grounds of anti-constitutional and anti-democratic activities.
Instead of founding an entirely new party, former members of Slovak Togetherness, under the leadership of Marian Kotleba, infiltrated the tiny Party of the Friends of Wine that had existed since 2000, changed its name to People's Party of Social Solidarity in May 2009, and then finally altered it to People's Party – Our Slovakia in early 2010. This was done to avoid the legal difficulties with registering a new party under this name given that a different party called Our Slovakia already existed.
Milan Uhrík and a few other ĽSNS representatives would leave the LSNS and form the Republic Movement in 2021 after disagreements over the declining support for the party.
Ties to fascism and far-right extremism
The party is classified by politicians, academics, media outlets, and political scientists as being fascist in nature. This is due to several members of the party being connected to extremist movements such as the Slovak Brotherhood, including leader Marian Kotleba. Party MPs requested a minute of silence for Jozef Tiso to be held in parliament. This request was denied. Tiso was the president of the Slovak State, a clero-fascist republic which existed during the Second World War and served as a satellite state to Nazi Germany. He supported and institute discriminatory laws against Jews, and the Slovak State paid Nazi Germany to deport Slovak Jews during the Holocaust in Slovakia. The party still celebrates 14 March, the anniversary of the founding of the Slovak State.
Kotleba attended a march while dressed in a uniform resembling the ones worn by the Hlinka Guard, described Jews as "devils in human skin", and promoted the conspiracy theory of the Zionist Occupation Government. The party distanced itself from its nostalgia for the Slovak State following failure during the 2006 elections, and instead focused on Anti-Romani comments. Kotleba and his party was also described by both the Slovak President Andrej Kiska and Czech President Miloš Zeman as fascist. The party denies any connection to fascism. Members of the party have been repeatedly charged with Holocaust denial, which is a felony in Slovakia.
During the 2016 Slovak parliamentary election, the party nominated several controversial and extremist candidates to the National Council, such as an ex-singer of neo-Nazi music bands Krátky proces and Juden Mord and a candidate who openly admired Adolf Hitler and promoted Hlinka's historical clero-fascist Slovak People's Party. In May 2017, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Slovak Republic made a proposal to the Supreme Court, requesting the dissolution of the party. The General Prosecutor's Office reasoned this step by pointing to the pro-fascist tendencies of the party, violation of the constitution of the Slovak Republic and violation of Slovak and international laws. The Supreme Court rejected this bid, ruling that the prosecution did not produce sufficient evidence to support the dissolution of the party.
During the party's congress meeting on 29 March 2018, a new logo was proposed which replaced the old logo depicting a straight Slovak double-cross which bore a strong resemblance to the logo used by HSĽS and the Hlinka Guard during the First Slovak Republic with the new logo that depicts the classic Slovak double-cross standing atop the Tatra Mountains. The party claimed that they changed the logo to distance themselves from fascism, Nazism, or any form of right-wing extremism.
In 2019, party MP Milan Mazurek was convicted by the Supreme Court for the racist anti-Roma statements he made on the radio station Rádio Frontinus in 2016. He thus became the first Slovak MP to lose his parliamentary seat as a consequence of being convicted of a deliberate crime, and had to pay a €10,000 fine. Mazurek was re-elected in 2020.
, the party spokesperson was Ondrej Ďurica, a former member of the neo-Nazi band Biely Odpor (). 2020 candidate Andrej Medvecký was convicted of attacking a black man while shouting racist slurs, while another candidate, Anton Grňo, was fined for making a fascist salute (na stráž). Party leader Marian Kotleba was sentenced by a first-degree court to four years and four months in a lowest-security prison for giving cheques in the sum of €1,488, a reference to the Fourteen Words, to three families at a charity event held on 14 March 2017 (the crime of supporting and propagating a movement whose aim is the repression of human rights and freedoms, and doing so publicly). He appealed against the verdict.
Ideology and agenda
In the manifesto of Kotleba – People's Party Our Slovakia, the party states it wants a "functioning state" that is free from corruption, foreign influences and "larceny of public finance". It seeks to give the general public the power to recall any member of the parliament and it wishes to decrease the total number of seats within the National Council from 150 to 100. Additionally, it wants to introduce a flat tax rate of 15% and stop the financing of campaigns for political parties from the state budget, withhold welfare funds for those who refuse to work, and end the financing of NGOs. Moreover, the party advocates for the protection of the environment from pollution and exploitation by implementing conservationist laws and regulations and supporting the research and development of renewable energy.
The party sees the EU and NATO as "undermining the sovereignty of the Slovak nation", and wants to leave these organizations in order to "give Slovakia complete sovereignty and not be part of American war crimes and a toy in the hands of foreign superpowers". The party rejects the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade agreement, advocates a departure from the European Monetary Union, and seeks to re-establish the previous currency, the Slovak koruna, in order to give the state and the central bank authority to decide on the country's monetary policy.
As for internal security, the party wants to establish a home guard with the intention of "protecting the people in areas where legitimate police forces are not adequate at stopping Gypsy extremists who steal, rape and murder decent people", while also advocating the arming of the populace for the "protection of personal life and private property". The party also wants to make politicians responsible for any criminal or corrupt activity they partake in while being a public servant and to be punished accordingly. In addition, ĽSNS also intends to make police forces undergo training in "illegal settlements" inhabited by the resident Romani populace and "demolish any illegal structures, whether they are black settlements or palaces of the rich". The party seeks to re-establish border controls on each segment of the country's borders and give the parliament the ability to use the army to secure and patrol these borders if necessary.
Due to the country's armed forces being small and ill-prepared as a result of conscription being abolished, ĽSNS sees it as necessary to modernize, renew, and increase the size of the Slovak Armed Forces to be able to "effectively protect the nation from any foreign threats when it leaves NATO", to "prevent the hordes of Muslim immigrants from coming to Slovakia", and to "protect Christianity and European culture from Islamization". Furthermore, the party wants to teach children traditionalist and fundamentalist Christian values, to "protect them from violent media", and to ban the operation of gambling machines in the country, while supporting and subsidizing domestic culture and artists to prevent Slovakia from "descending into a degenerate society made up by consumerism, secularism and empty liberalism". ĽSNS has also made proposals in parliament for the banning of abortion conducted in the second and third trimester and contraception in Slovakia, and is staunchly opposed to LGBTQ rights, denouncing the LGBTQ community as "freaks and perverts" and pushing for an active crackdown on LGBTQ activists and media, and the party also supports a constitutional ban on LGBTQ partnerships.
The party plans to give jobs to the long-term unemployed through public works programs. These jobs would consist of the maintenance of roads, schools, national memorials, hospitals and construction of housing as part of their social policy. The retirement age would be lowered to 60 years and the government would increase financial benefits for mothers with children, with rentable housing being provided to "law-abiding and decent families" and benefits to "non-working gypsy thieves" and "asocials" being cancelled.
The party also seeks to nationalize the healthcare system in order to provide universal comprehensive healthcare for the citizens of Slovakia, as written in the Constitution of Slovakia, and to create one national health insurance organization. Additionally, the party wants to return to a centralized emergency service and to make sure that every ambulance has a physician on board to administer appropriate medical care.