Crisis of Heger's Cabinet
After the crisis of Cabinet of Eduard Heger in 2023, then-leader of the party Miroslav Kollár met former prime minister of Slovakia 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.
On 27 January, after the announcement of a snap election, Dzurinda presented the Blue Coalition, returning to Slovak politics after leaving it ten years ago. 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. Dzurinda's press conference was attended by former members of the SDKÚ-DS and leader of the SPOLU party Miroslav Kollár. 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.
Due to disagreements with Kollár, Dzurinda left the project shortly after and founded his own The Blues – European Slovakia party. Then-Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger assumed the leadership of the party which was renamed to Demokrati (lit. 'Democrats')
The Democrats promoted a petition to hold a referendum on life payments for ex-leaders.
