The Free Forum is a political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, founded in 2004 by dissident parliamentarians from the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ). Zuzana Martináková

Zuzana Martináková

Zuzana Martináková is a Slovak politician and a former journalist. She is the leader of the political party Free Forum....

 is the leader of the party.

The Free Forum was founded in January 2004 by Ivan Šimko

Ivan Šimko

Ivan Šimko is Slovak politician and former Defence Minister.A founding member of the Christian Democratic Movement in 1990, Šimko left to co-found the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union in 2000. After a disagreement with Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, he led a group of MPs to form the Free...

 and other Slovak Democratic and Christian Union MPs. Two months later, Zuzana Martináková

Zuzana Martináková

Zuzana Martináková is a Slovak politician and a former journalist. She is the leader of the political party Free Forum....

 was elected party leader, and Šimko left later that year. In the 2006 parliamentary election

Slovak parliamentary election, 2006

The 2006 parliamentary elections in Slovakia took place on Saturday June 17, 2006. The voters selected 150 representatives for the National Council of the Slovak Republic. The highest number of seats, 50, was won by left-wing party Direction - Social Democracy led by Robert Fico. In total, six...

, the party won 3.47% of the vote: falling short of the 5% threshold

Election threshold

In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...

 to join the Slovak Parliament

National Council of the Slovak Republic

The National Council of the Slovak Republic , abbreviated to NR SR, is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameral, and consists of 150 MPs, who are elected by universal suffrage under proportional representation every four years....

. In the 2010 parliamentary election

Slovak parliamentary election, 2010

A parliamentary election took place in Slovakia on 12 June 2010. The elections were contested by eighteen parties, six of which passed the 5% threshold for sitting in parliament...

, the party formed part of Union – Party for Slovakia, which won only 0.7% of the vote.

History

• 13 January 2004 – Ivan Šimko
  Ivan Šimko
  Ivan Šimko is Slovak politician and former Defence Minister.A founding member of the Christian Democratic Movement in 1990, Šimko left to co-found the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union in 2000. After a disagreement with Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, he led a group of MPs to form the Free...
  
   and a group of MPs left the SDKÚ, after frictions with Mikuláš Dzurinda
  Mikuláš Dzurinda
  Mikuláš Dzurinda is a Slovak politician who was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 30 October 1998 to 4 July 2006. He was a founder and leader of the Slovak Democratic Coalition and the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union...
  
  
• 27 March 2004 – surprisingly Zuzana Martináková was elected the party leader
• October 2004 – Ivan Šimko left the party and founded a new political party named Mission 21 (Slovak: Misia 21)
• 17 April 2009 – became an observer member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
  European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
  The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 56 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe...
  
  (until 2011)