New documents about the Forum Project, led by Marta Šimečková, the mother of the opposition leader Michal Šimečka, have seen the light of day. The materials were published by Šimečková herself. She wants to clear her name and not spoil her son’s promising career as a mother. Everyone understands that. Well, it seems that some of the citizens of Slovakia are making fools of themselves.
Šimečka’s main argument is that she does not understand accounting and money and that her partner in the project, Andrea Puková, was in charge of finances. But is it necessary to have internet banking to control accounting and financial flows? After all, everything cannot be justified just by laziness.
Šimečková can’t get out of one: from 2021, Projekt Fórum did not file tax returns. In 2020, the project office was robbed, the accounting for previous years is missing, because the thieves took the files with the accounting…
Whatever Šimečka’s financial illiteracy was, as an averagely intelligent person, she probably knew that it was necessary to keep accounts and file tax returns. Did she and her colleague not talk about it at all? The excuse that the accountant got sick and they simply forgot to manage the accounts is at the level of a first grader. Didn’t they even talk at home or in a wider circle of friends about the fact that it’s time to file a tax return? At the same time, Šimečkova’s husband revealed that they discussed in detail which guest they would invite. Does the Šimečkov family think Slovaks are fools?
What kind of message is this to ordinary, honest Slovaks, businessmen who struggle with accounting and are afraid of making the smallest mistake that the tax authorities would throw at them. Was there anything to worry about during the governments of Matovič, Heger and Ódor?
It is impossible to associate a son with the actions and opinions of his parents, but how can the chairman of Progressive Slovakia stand in front of people, moralize, promise to prosecute corruption and fraud, when his family has been struggling with tax returns and accounting for years?
Progressive Slovakia will do everything to sweep the case of Šimeček’s mother under the carpet or turn it upside down and shift all the blame to Fico.
Michal Šimečka himself, as a well-earning vice-president of the European Parliament, lent roughly 5,000 euros to the mother for the project. These should have been returned to him from a subsidy from state money, from taxpayers. Let’s wait. Mrs. Šimečková’s words do not fit with bank statements: camouflaged withdrawals, strange transfers, purposeful rewriting of names.
Andrea Puková was said to have transferred over 230,000 euros to her private accounts. In fact, a (private) payment was also found for the purchase of designer furniture. Coincidentally, Puková bragged about this stylish furniture in a report in Denník N two years ago. It is evident that she did not live in poverty. That her long-time close friend Marta Šimečková had no idea, didn’t ask how she paid for it? Are we all the rest of us little children?
Martin M. Šimečka said that his wife spent all family savings, inheritance, 200,000 euros on the financing (debts) of the Forum Project. He himself had no idea about it, but he did not present the evidence. (After he completely discredited himself as the editor-in-chief of the Czech Respekt, when he deliberately defamed the writer Milan Kundera, when as a journalist he did not want to reveal the facts and know the truth, only to scandalize and destroy a person, a much more talented fellow writer, he simply cannot be trusted.)
Šimečková scolds Puková, she remains silent for now. Shifting the blame to a female companion may be a well-thought-out strategy of Šimečková and her team, how to develop themselves, keep their name spotless and not harm their son Michal and his political career. Blaming Fico’s government, questioning the findings, trivializing the facts, challenging the legality of the revelations, creating various stories and legends, various excuses (“I’m nothing, I’m a musician”), subterfuge, counter-attacks and lateral attacks will fit into this sophisticated procedure.
If the defense fails, it will be difficult for Michal Šimečka to maintain the face of a trustworthy leader. The progressives still have Ivan Korčok and Ľudovít Ódor. The one with the incoming Hungarian nationalist prime minister would have more negatives than positives. With Korčok, there is a threat that competitors Matovič, Naď and Gröhling will expose his connection to the three Smer governments until 2020 (party politics is not the same as a presidential campaign).
That’s why the PS will do everything to sweep the case under the carpet or turn it upside down and shift all the blame to Fico (this has already been done several times).
