The Civic Conservative Party was formed by
Democratic Party (DS) members of the
National Council on 10 November 2001. The DS initially offered the OKS and the
Liberal-Democratic Union to run in the
2002 election, on a united list, but then withdrew and endorsed the
Slovak Democratic and Christian Union. The OKS attempted to negotiate a joint list with the
Christian Democratic Movement and
Party of the Hungarian Coalition, but this failed to materialise. Undeterred, the OKS ran alone under the banner 'Call for Slovakia' (
Výzva pre Slovensko) and gained 9,422 votes, or 0.32% of the national total. In the
December 2002 local elections, two mayors were elected for OKS. In addition, OKS took 20 deputy seats, or 0.1% of the seats nationwide. In July 2003, it was one of four parties across Europe endorsing the
soft eurosceptic Prague Appeal, along with the British
Conservative Party,
Law and Justice of Poland, and the Czech
Civic Democrats. The OKS supported
František Mikloško of the
Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) in the
2004 presidential election. Mikloško was one of the few candidates not being former members of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and ended up fifth with 6.51% share of the total vote. In the
European election two months later, the party fielded
Peter Osuský as its sole candidate. He received 7,016 votes: 1% share of the vote. In the
2005 regional elections, the party gained three seats:
František Šebej and
Peter Tatár in
Bratislava Region and
Katarína Adamicová in
Žilina Region. This represented 0.72% share nationwide. OKS offered to run on the common candidate list with the Christian Democratic Movement in the
2006 parliamentary election. This offer was turned down by the KDH, the Civic Conservatives had to raise 500,000
korún as a fee for the party to participate. In March 2006, OKS member
Ondrej Dostál applied to the
Constitutional Court, considering the possible unconstitutionality of the election participation fee, saying the fee affects his right to run for office. In the election, former chairman of the
Czechoslovak Constitutional Court Ernest Valko and former Minister of Health
Rudolf Zajac appeared on the OKS list. The party obtained 6,262 votes which represented 0.27% share of the total vote. In the
2009 regional elections, the OKS won four seats, up one from 2005: three in
Bratislava Region and one in
Žilina Region.
Parliamentary party In the
2010 election, fourteen OKS members stood on the
Most–Híd party list. Strongly defining themselves as against the
left-wing nationalist coalition, four MPs were elected from the list, along with ten Most–Híd members. This gave the OKS its first parliamentary representation since 2002. Most–Híd entered a centre-right coalition government, which the Civic Conservatives supported, but the OKS did not join the government themselves, and remained separate from Most–Híd. In October 2010, Peter Zajac called for
Dobroslav Trnka to step down as General Prosecutor, after Trnka criticised Interior Minister
Daniel Lipšic and other officials, saying that Trnka did not respect the law or the
human rights of
ethnic Hungarians. The party supported changes to the controversial
State Language Act, but the OKS's
Ondrej Dostál said the changes did not go far enough in allowing use of minority languages. In March 2011, the party opposed the government's plans to increase taxes on the
self-employed, and instead proposed funding cuts in
payroll tax by cutting government spending. The four OKS MPs have proposed a law restricting the government's power to build highways on privately owned land, which had earlier been ruled unconstitutional. In October 2011, the party opposed the government's commitment to the
European Financial Stability Facility. In response,
František Šebej left the OKS on 11 October and joined Most–Híd. After the subsequent fall of the government, the OKS attempted to renew their alliance with Most–Híd at the
2012 election, but were rejected. Instead, several OKS candidates were running on the
Ordinary People list. However, they had left the list before the elections, in protest to the request of the leader of
Ordinary People Igor Matovič, that all candidates from the list undertake
polygraph test. ==Ideology==