The Democrats (Slovak: Demokrati), during 2018 – 2023 known as TOGETHER – Civic Democracy (Slovak: SPOLU – občianska demokracia, SPOLU) and later the Blue Coalition (Slovak: Modrá koalícia, Modrí), is a Slovak political party founded in 2018 by Miroslav Beblavý. The party has changed leadership multiple times and is led by the former Minister of Defense of Slovakia Jaroslav Naď since 2 December 2023.

Quick Facts Chairman, Vice Chairmen ...

Democrats Demokrati
Chairman	Jaroslav Naď
Vice Chairmen	Eduard Heger Andrea Letanovská František Oľha Juraj Šeliga
Founders	Miroslav Beblavý
Founded	28 January 2018 (2018-01-28) (as Together – Civic Democracy)
Split from	Network[1]
Preceded by	Civic Democratic Platform[lower-alpha 1] (Democrats)
Headquarters	Palisády 33 811 06 Bratislava-Staré Mesto
Membership (2022)	314[2]
Ideology	Liberal conservatism Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre-right[3][4][5]
European affiliation	European People's Party
European Parliament group	European People's Party
Colours	Magenta,   Purple,   Turquoise
National Council	0 / 150
European Parliament	1 / 14
Regional governors	0 / 8
Regional deputies[lower-alpha 2]	36 / 419
Mayors[lower-alpha 2]	7 / 2,904
Local councillors[lower-alpha 2]	184 / 20,462
Website
www.smedemokrati.sk
Politics of Slovakia Political parties Elections

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TOGETHER – Civic Democracy was a centre-right conservative liberal and liberal conservative party.^[6][7][8] SPOLU was placed as centrist^[9] or centre-right on the political spectrum.^[10] The former chairman of the party Eduard Heger presented the party as centrist, pro-European, pro-NATO and green.^[11][12]

The creation of SPOLU was announced on 17 November 2017, by former under-secretary of Sieť Miroslav Beblavý, who left the party in protest of its decision to join the Smer-led government, and former under-secretary of liberal SaS Jozef Mihál.^[13]

The party presents itself as a centre-right, pro-European party focusing on a modern economy, accessible healthcare and a functional educational system.^[14][15]

The Fonding Council of SPOLU consists of independent MPs of the National Council of the Slovak Republic and former members of Sieť, SaS and OĽaNO: Oto Žarnay, Jozef Mihál, Simona Petrík, Viera Dubačová, Miroslav Beblavý, Katarína Macháčková and lawyer Pavel Nechala of Transparency International.^[16]

The party's founding congress was held on 14 April 2018 in Poprad. Miroslav Beblavý was elected as its leader. Katarína Macháčková and Jozef Mihál were elected as Deputy leaders, with the third Deputy leader being Erik Baláž, founder of environmentalist campaign We are the forest, and recipient of the White Crow 2017 award for the fight against corruption.^[17]

In the 2020 Slovak parliamentary election TOGETHER joined the socially liberal party Progressive Slovakia with which they created a coalition but narrowly failed to get into the parliament^[18] because of TOGETHER's very low popularity.^[19] After this Beblavý resigned from his leadership position.

In early 2023 after the crisis of Cabinet of Eduard Heger, the then-leader of the party Miroslav Kollár met with the former Slovak Prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda with whom he planned to co-operate during the following parliamentary elections. Dzurinda had originally planned to create his own liberal-conservative political force "The Blues – European People's Party", but the announcement of early elections changed his plans.^[20]

On 27 January 2023, after the announcement of a snap election, Dzurinda presented the Blue Coalition, thereby returning to Slovak politics after leaving it 10 years ago.^[21] At a press conference, Dzurinda presented his project, with which he wants to fight "for a European Slovakia", wants to be "a reasonable alternative to the mafia and chaos" and "for a modern and educated Slovakia". He called the Blue Coalition his new political home.^[20][22][23] Dzurinda's press conference was attended by former members of the SDKÚ-DS and leader of the SPOLU party Miroslav Kollár.^[24] Both the leader of ODS and the leader of Democrats of Slovakia, minor centre-right parties which cooperated with SPOLU, announced their support for the Blue Coalition.^[25][26]

Because of disagreements with Kollár, Dzurinda left the project shortly after and founded his own The Blues – European Slovakia party. Then then-Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger assumed the leadership of the party and the party was renamed to Democrats.^[27]

The leader of the Christian Democratic Movement criticized Dzurinda's "dream" of uniting the KDH, SaS and PS in the elections, saying that the "non-aggression pact" with the Progressives in the last elections brought damage to the party.^[28][29]