Ordinary People and Independent Personalities

The four Ordinary People (OĽaNO) MPs were Igor Matovič, Erika Jurinová, Martin Fecko, Jozef Viskupič.[1] OĽaNO sat in the National Council with the SaS and signed an agreement with the SaS that its members could not cross the floor to another group. In June and July 2010,[1] it was rumoured that OĽaNO would refuse to back the programme of the new centre-right coalition,[2] which included Freedom and Solidarity, and whose majority depended on Ordinary People.[3]

In August 2010, Matovič said that it was not the right time to become an independent party.[3] However, on 28 October 2011, Ordinary People filed a formal party registration, while Matovič announced that the party would compete in 2012 parliamentary election as a separate electoral list, of independents and representatives of the Civic Conservative Party and the Conservative Democrats.[4] In the 2012 election, the party came in third place overall, winning 8.55% of the vote and 16 seats.[5]

In the 2014 European elections, OĽaNO came in fourth place nationally, receiving 7.46% of the vote and electing 1 MEP.[6]

In the 2016 parliamentary election, Ordinary People ran in alliance with New Majority. They received 11.02% votes in Slovakia and consequently 19 MPs in the Slovak Parliament, 17 of whom came from Ordinary People.

In 2014–2019, the party was member of European Parliament group of European Conservatives and Reformists and in 2019 switched to the European People's Party group.

At the February 2020 parliamentary election, the Party received 25.0% of the vote, winning a 53 of 150 seats in the National Council. Party leader Igor Matovič was appointed as the Prime Minister designate.

OĽaNO is described as populist with strong anti-corruption and anti-elitist rhetoric. According to the survey by Focus in 2020, 70% of OĽaNO's voters voted for them because “they are fighting corruption“. Although the party is not ideologically clear, its leader Igor Matovič, former Christian Democratic Movement's voter, considers himself a social conservative. Before the 2020 parliamentary election, Matovič announced that his movement would not join a government coalition that wanted to establish civil unions or loosen drug policy.

The movement has only 55 members and has no regional neither nationwide democratic structures. The use of public subsidies for the movement is considered non-transparent and similar to a private company rather than a political entity. In March 2021, during the government crisis, a group of OĽaNO's MPs wrote an anonymous letter expressing loyalty to their leader, saying that “he had accomplished a miracle“ and that “without him their work made no sense“. At the same time, in the event of his resignation or dismissal, they threatened to leave movement's parliamentary group. OĽaNO is nicknamed a “sect“ or “Matovič's Witnesses“ (allusion to Jehovah's Witnesses) by its critics.