Compass Elections: Slovakia Elections 101
Slovakia is holding its parliamentary election on February 29. Here is what you need know:
The 150 members of Slovakia’s unicameral parliament, the National Council, are elected under proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. Single parties need to pass a five-percent threshold in order to qualify for seats, while party coalitions require seven percent.
Slovakia is currently ruled by a minority government led by the nominally center-left Direction–Social Democracy (Smer–SD) party. Smer first came to power after the 2006 parliamentary election in a coalition government and has remained the largest party in parliament since.
Peter Pellegrini, the current Prime Minister of Slovakia. (Wikimedia Commons)
A Murder in Slovakia
Robert Fico, the leader of Smer, first became prime minister following the 2006 parliamentary election. While his party increased its share of seats in the 2010 election, its coalition partners failed to do so, and the parties fell short of a majority. Instead, a four-party center-right coalition led by Iveta Radičová, the country’s first female prime minister, ruled from 2010 to 2012, until a vote of no-confidence over the expansion of the Eurozone’s bailout mechanism toppled the government in 2011 and forced early elections. Riding on a wave of support helped by allegations of corruption against center-right politicians, Fico returned to power in 2012 with an 83-seat majority in the National Council. In 2014, Fico ran for the largely-ceremonial position of president, a move that would have handed Smer control of parliament, the presidency, and the judiciary, but he was unexpectedly defeated by the liberal and politically independent Andrej Kiska in the runoff.
The refugee crisis beginning in 2015 triggered a surge in anti-immigration sentiment in Slovakia much like in the rest of Europe. Fico sought to tap into such views, repeatedly opposing EU-agreed quotas on refugee relocation and dismissing multiculturalism as “a fiction” throughout the campaign for the 2016 parliamentary elections. Smer, however, suffered a 34-seat loss, ending up with just 49 seats, a result of controversies over healthcare and education undermining the party’s cultivated image of good governance. Far-right parties, meanwhile, saw a rise in support: the neo-Nazi People’s Party–Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) won 14 seats with eight percent of the vote.
Robert Fico, the former Prime Minister of Slovakia and current leader of Smer. (Wikimedia Commons)
The murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova in February 2018 shocked the country. Kuciak and his fiancée were found shot to death in their home in the village of Velka Maca, east of the capital, Bratislava. Kuciak, an investigative reporter whose focus was government and business corruption, was the first journalist killed since Slovakia gained its independence in 1993. The story Kuciak was working on prior to his death connected the business dealings of an alleged member of Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia to two senior government advisers. Protests broke out in the capital and around the country, and opposition parties, as well as Smer’s coalition partner, Most-Híd, demanded Fico’s resignation. Fico finally stepped down along with the entire cabinet on March 15, leaving Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini to form a new government, though Fico remained the leader of the party.
In March 2019, authorities charged the Slovak oligarch Marian Kocner with ordering the murder of Kuciak. The presidential election, held days after the announcement, saw the election of the political novice Zuzana Čaputová, from the social-liberal Progressive Slovakia party. Her opponent, a career diplomat backed by Smer, lost handily with just 42 percent of the vote.
The Parties
Parties represented in the National Council:
Direction–Social Democracy (Smer–SD): Founded as Direction in 1999 by Robert Fico as a splinter party from the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), the successor to the Communist Party of Slovakia. The party merged in 2005 with the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia (which was founded in 1990 and briefly led in 1992 by the former reformist Communist leader of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubček, of Prague Spring fame), the SDL, and Social Democratic Alternative (another small splinter party from the SDL), earning it its current name. Ostensibly center-left, it has grown populist and nationalist under Fico’s leadership, tapping into the strong Catholic identity of the country and scaremongering about refugees. It consistently remained the largest party in parliament since the 2006 elections, even if its size had diminished after 2016, holding only 48 seats with 28.3 percent of the vote. Polls conducted since the beginning of the campaign show that the party’s support has declined, but it still appeared to maintain its front-runner status with around 17 percent until a recent surge in support for the Ordinary People party.
Slovak National Party (SNS): A long-running conservative nationalist party founded in 1989, led by Andrej Danko, the Speaker of the National Council since 2016, it has been a part of the government coalition since 2016, having previously joined the government from 2006 to 2010. It currently holds 16 seats. SNS has a controversial past, with its former leader, Ján Slota, being infamous for his incendiary remarks against Hungary and ethnic Hungarians, once threatening to “get in our tanks and […] flatten Budapest.” SNS currently polls around four percent, meaning that it might fail to remain in the National Council.
Most-Híd: A conservative party representing the interest of the large Hungarian minority in Slovakia’s southern regions and a part of the government coalition, it led by the long-time representative Béla Bugár and holds ten seats. The name of the party came from the Slovak and Hungarian words for “bridge,” reflecting its program calling for greater cooperation between the Hungarian minority and the Slovak majority. It was previously part of the center-right coalition from 2010 to 2012. The party has been criticized for its decision to enter the coalition in 2016, an action it defended as providing a bulwark against far-right extremism. Most-Híd has, however, pledged to not reenter a coalition with Smer after the election, though it is currently polling below the viability threshold anyway. It has attempted to form an electoral coalition with other Hungarian minority parties, but negotiations fell through, with the other parties forming their own coalition, Party of the Hungarian Community (SMK-MKP), which is polling below the threshold as well.
Ordinary People (OĽaNO): A center-right populist party founded in 2011, it is led by Igor Matovič, a member of the National Council, and holds ten seats. It has seized on an anti-corruption message for its campaign slogan: “Let’s Beat the Mafia Together,” a point benefiting from the party never holding power in any of the coalition governments. Matovič told Reuters, "We want to show in this election that central Europe has not gone crazy." It is practically tied with Smer in the latest polls conducted prior to the polling moratorium at 17 percent, and it might even surpass Smer in popularity.
Freedom and Solidarity (SaS): A Eurosceptic center-right liberal party founded in 2009 by the economist Richard Sulík, it currently holds 11 seats. SaS favors decriminalization of marijuana and legalization of civil unions for same-sex couples, as well as a balanced budget and the reimplementation of a flat-rate income tax. It previously was part of the center-right coalition from 2010 to 2012. Latest polling shows SaS at seven percent support.
We Are Family (Sme Rodina): An anti-immigrant and national-populist party founded in 2015, led by the businessman Boris Kollar, it currently holds nine seats. Its self-declared goal is to protect the Slovak family from threats “within and without,” and its leader associates closely with other far-right European politicians, including Italy’s Matteo Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen. Latest polling shows the party at seven-percent support.
People’s Party – Our Slovakia (ĽSNS): An unabashedly neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist party led by former-Governor Marian Kotleba of the central Banská Bystrica region, it currently holds ten seats. Kotleba has described life under the Slovak State, a Nazi puppet regime during World War II, as “like living in heaven.” One of its representatives was expelled from the National Council in September 2019 for hate speech against the Roma people, a first in the country’s history. While early polls showed ĽSNS as high as second place with 12 percent, sparking worries that it might even win the elections, more recent polls showed that it is unlikely to finish first. Nevertheless, it still polls third out of all the parties at around ten percent.
Parties without representation in the National Council:
Zuzana Čaputová, the President of Slovakia. (Wikimedia Commons)
Progressive Slovakia (PS): A pro-European center-left liberal party founded in 2017, it is the former party of current President Zuzana Čaputová, who handed the leadership position to the Bratislava businessman Michal Truban after winning the presidential election. Starting off as a grassroots party, PS has been compared to French President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move! party, and the two parties are currently part of the same coalition in the European Parliament. PS is partnering with Together–Civic Democracy (Spolu), a liberal-conservative party, in the election. PS has also signed a nonaggression agreement with the two other extra-parliamentary parties, For the People and Christian Democratic Movement, committing to seek overlap with program priorities for a future government. It currently polls around nine percent, the highest out of all the extra-parliamentary parties.
For the People (Za Ludi or ZL): A pro-European centrist liberal party founded by former-President Andrej Kiska in 2019. Kiska remained a popular figure in Slovakian politics, having clashed repeatedly with Fico and his party during his term in office, and ZL has sought to unite with other opposition parties to deny another Smer government. It currently polls around seven percent.
Christian Democratic Movement (KDH): A pro-European Christian Democratic party founded in 1990, it is one of the oldest Slovak parties. It has fallen from grace in recent years, largely due to scandals connected with its old leadership, such as the “golden parachute” severance package doled out by its former-leader, Ján Figel´. The KDH barely missed the viability threshold in the 2016 election with 4.94 percent of the vote and is currently polling around five percent, meaning its inclusion in the new parliament is a tossup.
Good Choice (Dobra Volba): A social democratic party founded in 2019 by former Smer members, it is led by the former health and interior minister Tomas Drucker. Drucker was polled as the third-most-trustworthy politician in Slovakia in a 2019 report, and his party would likely siphon off some Smer voters disenchanted with Fico’s leadership. It currently polls at four percent.
Homeland (Vlasť): An anti-establishment ethnic nationalist party founded in 2019 by former Supreme Court Chairman Štefan Harabin. The party program blames the EU, immigrants, and the LGBT community for posing the greatest threats to Slovakia and favors ending EU sanctions on Russia. Harabin, who previously served as justice minister under Fico, is known for his close connection with former-Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, the country’s strongman leader throughout the 1990s. Vlasť has not ruled out potential future cooperation with ĽSNS and currently polls at four percent.
Splintered State
The regions of Slovakia. (Wikimedia Commons)
Change has been a major theme of the election, with even Smer joining in on promising “responsible change” and attempting to shore up support by increasing child benefit and providing bonus for pensioners. With Smer’s coalition partners struggling to meet the viability threshold, however, the ruling party is highly likely to fall short of a majority. The large number of liberal opposition parties means that each would have to focus on first meeting the threshold, a task complicated by the fragmented political landscape. A potential liberal coalition would likely require five or six parties, and finding common ground besides a commitment to democratic standards would prove difficult. Corruption exposed by the Kuciak murder and the trial of Marian Kocner would help mobilize support for liberal democratic parties, but at the same time it casts doubt on the entire political system itself. Such anti-establishment sentiments greatly benefited far-right parties like ĽSNS, which might emerge as the third largest party.
If Smer wishes to hold on to power as a minority government, it would likely require support from the far-right party, normalizing its in Slovak politics. At the same time, ethnic Hungarians, amounting to eight percent of the population, may not see any representation in the National Council with the possible failure of Most-Híd to qualify—a result of its participation in the Fico government. In any case, this election will have wide-ranging implications for Slovakia’s internal political development, pitting nationalist populism against a potential liberal democratic revival.