Slovakia’s parliament approved the amendment extending the ban on the publication of opinion polls from 14 to 50 days before elections, one of the longest periods in the world.
The decision comes after the members of the Parliament rejected the comments of President Zuzana Čaputová who suggested to not extend the ban, as it would be against the right to both gather and spread information.
Mrs Čaputová announced that now that her veto has been rejected she would turn to the Constitutional Court.
The country’s ruling Smer Party, which submitted the proposal, believes that opinion polls are influenced by political parties and therefore confuses voters.
“We believe that in this case, the law does not restrict the voter’s freedom of information but, on the contrary, it seeks to protect the voter from purposeful misinformation,” claim members of Smer.
The move comes just ahead of the country’s next parliamentary elections, which will take place in February 2020.
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