Anti-Rom election campaign

In the run-up to June general elections, Slovakia is now awash in "an uprecedented tide of filth," reports SME. In its editorial entitled "For Shame," the daily responds to a Slovak National Party (SNS) campaign poster which depicts a tattooed, overweight Rom, naked to the waist but wearing an ostentatious gold necklace. The slogan announces, "So you don't have to feed the layabouts." Prime Minister Robert Fico has no hope of hiding the presence "of racists in his government," remarks the Bratislava daily, now that the nationalists of the SNS "are drumming up votes with racism“ and "Roma stereotypes." SMEnotes that as the leader of a coalition formed in 2006, which includes the SNS, Fico has encouraged the widespread acceptance of unacceptable attitudes by willingly turning a blind eye to hostility to Roms and the Hungarian minority.