Beginnings Richard Sulík was special adviser to
Ivan Mikloš and
Ján Počiatek, the country's two
Ministers of Finance, with whom he worked to simplify the tax system and implement Slovakia's 19%
flat tax. He announced his intention to found Freedom and Solidarity on 10 October 2008, calling for a party dedicated to
economic freedom and questioning the commitment of the
Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party (SDKÚ–DS) to that objective. Analysts cited a lack of any
liberal party in the country. ahead of the
2009 European Parliament election on 6 June. The party set publicly declared goals of entering the
National Council of Slovakia in 2010 and entering government in 2014. The party supported the SDKÚ–DS candidate
Iveta Radičová in the
2009 Slovak presidential election in March and April; she was defeated in the second round. With others, Sulík was approached by
Declan Ganley to join the
Libertas.eu alliance of
Eurosceptic parties for the European elections but turned down the invitation in order to remain independent. While he was also a sceptic of the
Lisbon Treaty and more generally a critic of European intransparency and bureaucracy, he did not share the isolationist position of Libertas. In the 2009 European Parliament election, SaS received 4.7% of the votes, just missing the 5%
election threshold; SDKÚ–DS accused SaS of unnecessarily furthering the fragmentation of the political right in Slovakia. In the
2009 Slovak regional elections, SaS won one seat in
Bratislava.
2009 referendum and 2010 parliamentary election founded SaS in 2009 to advance the ideas that he had proposed as counsellor to the Finance Ministry. In late 2009, SaS promoted a referendum striving for major cuts to politicians' privileges. The demands included downsizing the Slovak parliament from 150 to 100 MPs, scrapping their immunity from criminal prosecution and limits to be placed on the public finances spent on government officials' cars. Furthermore, they demanded that the radio and television market should be further liberalized, abolishing concessionary fees, and public officials' right to comment and reply to media coverage should be removed from the press law. In January 2010, SaS announced that by the end of 2009 it had managed to collect the 350,000 signatures needed in order to call a referendum. SaS forwarded the signatures to the Slovak president
Ivan Gašparovič, requesting him to schedule the referendum for the date of the parliamentary election on 12 June 2010. In March 2010, people reported Sulík to the police for the content of the manifesto for the
2010 Slovak parliamentary election, arguing that the party's manifesto commitment to legalisation of
cannabis constituted the criminal offence of "spread of addiction". This was thrown out by the prosecutors, who refused to press charges. The party's candidates were the most open about the state of their personal wealth. In the election to the National Council, SaS received 12.1%, coming third, and won 22 seats. The party was the only one in opposition that took votes from
Direction – Social Democracy (Smer–SD), The party entered into coalition negotiations with three centre-right parties, namely the
Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ–DS),
Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and
Most–Híd. The parties agreed a common programme and allocated ministries, with SaS controlling four ministries as well as choosing the
Speaker of the National Council. During the negotiations,
Igor Matovič, one of the four MPs elected on the SaS list from the
Ordinary People faction, alleged that he had been offered a bribe to destabilise the talks, prompting Sulík to make a formal complaint to the
prosecutor. On 29 June 2010, the President decided that the 2009 referendum petition met the requirements and the vote would go ahead on 18 September 2010. Four of the six issues in the referendum were part of the agreed programme of the new coalition government. In the
2010 Slovak political reform referendum, the turnout fell far below the 50% required.
2012 and 2016 parliamentary elections In February 2011, Igor Matovič was ejected from the caucus for voting for Smer–SD's proposed restrictions on
dual nationality. Ordinary People filed to become an independent political party on 28 October 2011 and run as a separate list, along with two small conservative parties. In the
2012 Slovak parliamentary election, SaS received 5.9% of the vote, placing it the sixth-largest party in the National Council with 11 deputies. In the
2014 European Parliament election in Slovakia, SaS came in sixth place nationally, receiving 6.7% of the vote and had one member elected as a
Member of the European Parliament. In the
2016 Slovak parliamentary election, the party received 12.1% of the vote, coming in as the second-largest party in the National Council with 21 deputies, exceeding expectations and making it the most successful election in SaS history.
2020 and 2022 parliamentary elections In the European Parliament Following the
2014 European Parliament election, Sulík questioned the involvement of SaS within the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group (ALDE group), with speculation that the party could instead switch groups to join the
European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR group). While Sulík joined the ALDE group as
Member of European Parliament for the start of the
8th European Parliament, he later defected to the ECR group on 2 October 2014. == Ideology and platform ==