Martin Poliačik
Martin Poliačik is a Slovak expert on communication and critical thinking. He is the Director for Strategy and Partnerships at the Emile Foundation. From 2010 to 2020, he was a member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. He is one of the founding members of the liberal party Progressive Slovakia. He previously co-founded the political party Freedom and Solidarity, which he left in November 2017 due to disagreements with its chairman, Richard Sulík. Poliačik studied systematic philosophy in Trnava, Slovakia. Prior to entering politics, he was a teacher at a Montessori school in Bratislava. From 2003 to 2006, he led the Slovak Debating Association as its executive director. Together with Linda Lančová, Poliačik wrote the book Order in the Head .
Political career
Freedom and Solidarity
Martin Poliačik was one of the founders of Freedom and Solidarity in 2009. He was a member of the Republican Council and chairman of the Programme Committee.Electoral Period 2010–2012
In the party's first election to the National Assembly, he ran as the 11th candidate, receiving 4,893 preferential votes, which secured him a parliamentary seat. During this term, he was a member of the Constitutional and Legal Committee and the Committee on Education, Science, Youth, and Sport.Electoral Period 2012–2016
In the 2012 Slovak parliamentary election Poliačik ran from the ninth place on the list of Freedom and Solidarity candidates. He finished eighth place by winning 7,595 preferential votes. He served as a member of the Constitutional Law Committee and the Mandate and Immunity Committee and was the deputy chairman of the party parliamentary club.Electoral period 2016–2020
In the 2016 parliamentary elections he ran as the 8th candidate on the ticket, receiving 45,914 votes and securing a parliamentary seat. He was the chairman of the Committee on the Incompatibility of Functions and a member of the Committee on Education, Science, Youth, and Sport.In March 2017 Poliačik was elected as one of the twelve members of the party's Republican Council, supported by Richard Sulík, despite their differences.
Council of Europe
From 2016 to 2020 he served in the Slovak delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. As vice-president of the ALDE faction, he spoke on topics such as Russian voting rights, election rigging in the Russian Federation, and the investigation into the murder of Boris Nemtsov.Due to his opposition to restoring voting rights to the Russian delegation, Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Andrej Danko and head of delegation to PACE Ľuboš Blaha, both very pro-Russian, sought his removal from the delegation.
Friends of Tibet Club
Poliačik led the Friends of Tibet Club in the Slovak Parliament for ten years, welcoming members of the exiled Tibetan parliament, the prime minister of the exiled Tibetan government, and the 14th Dalai Lama to Slovakia. In 2019, he attended the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising in Dharamshala, India, with then deputy speaker of parliament, Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová.Progressive Slovakia
In November 2017 Poliačik announced his departure from Freedom and Solidarity due to differences with chairman Richard Sulík, citing inadequate communication of the party's pro-European orientation and support for democracy The same year in December, Poliačik joined Progressive Slovakia, resulting in his dismissal as chair of the Committee on Incompatibility of Functions.In March 2018 Poliačik became a member of the Committee on Education, Science, Youth, and Sport, and participated as a substitute in the Permanent Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. After Zuzana Čaputová's election as President of Slovakia, he was elected Vice-Chairman of Progressive Slovakia at the 2019 Congress.