President destroys people’s respect for presidential post, says Kotleba

The chairman of the Far-right Kotleba - Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko (People's Party - Our Slovakia) and Governor of the Banská Bystrica region Marian Kotleba stated on Tuesday that he hopes President Andrej Kiska's decision not to invite him to a post-election meeting was only an ill-considered move caused by the election atmosphere. Kotleba was reacting to the fact that Kiska invited to the Presidential Palace the leaders of all parties that have made it into Parliament in Saturday's general election but Kotleba. "We'll have radical political extremism in uniforms in Parliament", commented Kiska, regarding Kotleba's election success. Kotleba's party will have 14 MPs in the 150-member House. "I believe that [Kiska] will begin behaving like a democratically elected president of a democratic country towards a democratically elected chairman of a parliamentary party", said Kotleba at a press conference, adding that his party received almost 210,000 votes (8.04 percent). "The president obviously didn't deem it worthwhile to sit down at one table with me. I'm not condemning him for that, however, I'm only sorry ... as I can see from people's reactions that by this move he's destroyed even the last remnants of their respect towards the presidential post", said Kotleba.