Just four Romani people are running in the Czech Republic for election to the European Parliament (EP). All are running for the Romani Democratic Party (RDS).

In Slovakia there are more than 20 Romani candidates on the lists of six parties. The EP elections will elect 21 MEPs from the Czech Republic, while 14 will be elected from Slovakia.

Compared to the 2014 elections to the EP, the number of Romani candidates in the Czech Republic has declined. In 2014 at least 12 Romani people ran, nine for the now-defunct Equal Opportunities Party (SRP), two for the RDS and one for the Green Party.

None of the candidates running from the Romani community this time are women. The 2014 EP elections featured three female Romani candidates, all for the SRP.
No Roma from the Czech Republic were elected to the EP back then. The RDS got 0.07 % of the vote (1 185 votes) and the SRP got 0.04 % (640 votes).

The leader of this year's four-member RDS candidate list is the chair of the party, Miroslav Tancoš. He also ran in 2014. 

The RDS second-place candidate is Štefan Gorol, followed by Miroslav Rusenko and Ladislav Sivák. Each candidate list can have as many as 28 people listed, but the RDS did not take advantage of that opportunity.

It is also interesting that Petr Erin Kováč, a non-Romani candidate who ran in the October 2018 elections to the Czech Senate on behalf of the RDS, is also competing in the EP contest. Kováč is the leading candidate for the JSI PRO? group, an acronym meaning "Are you in favor?", the initials of which stand for "Security, Solidarity, Investment for [the Future]".

The problem with the so-called "phantoms" in the state does not seem to end the end. In fact, the impression is that the state makes some laws "on its own hand" to present itself before all and in the holy that - we have brought a law to solve this problem!

But reality is another. Now the move should be the Roma NGO sector from the aspect of legal processing of one made on its own Law of persons without regulated civil status. Although a project was carried out quickly, including a large number of Roma NGOs who conducted field analysis of Roma-Fantomes to overcome this complex process and themselves to be an official part of this society.

What is symptomatic is that 2-3 weeks ago a formal working group composed of lawyers from several state institutions and ministries made a working version of this law, and is for consideration that is likely to be adopted. It is even more illogical that in this working group in drafting this law neither consulted nor taken into consideration the recommendations from the implemented proposals and measures by several Roma NGOs during the realized project precisely for persons without documents.

In order not to be late, here is a recommendation and guidance from the RDS precisely this working version of this law to be reviewed, reviewed and commented with the target of the people who are more familiar with this issue, and at the same time it is appealing to take good examples in our neighborhood (Serbia), and in that way one law will be adopted that will be beneficial to eliminate and solve this really

Therefore once again, one appeal from the RDS to all Roma political parties, the Roma NGO sector and all others to review this draft of this law, and to jointly raise the voice and bring a common position,

RDS analysis continues ...

 The position of the text is a personal position of the RDS and is outside the editorial policy of the Roma Times Web Portal