Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[Estrella]

1. The dirty campaign got going. Korčok's official website ivankorcok.sk was taken offline by a DDoS attack and someone put up a fake website ivankorcok2024.sk with fabricated quotes about how he thinks Matovič is an idiot, doesn't care about Ján Kuciak, doesn't regret serving the Mečiar regime, "as a sane person I obviously know Ukraine cannot win, but they told me we need to supply weapons" and so on. The site might be connected to Creo Advertising, the company that runs Pelle's campaign. The director of Creo responded by saying it's actually a false flag and a hit job on Pelle carried out by PS. An association called Voľte s rozumon ("Vote wisely"), run by former Smer minister Juraj Draxler bought Facebook ads with similar fake quotes. I'd just like to remind Pellegrini that his slogan for the first round that he put on all of his posters was Slovakia needs calm already.

2. High school elections took place for the second round as well. Over twenty thousand students from 149 schools took part. Unsurprisingly, Korčok would win 74-26. In grammar schools Korčok won 83-17, in trade schools 65-35, in Hungarian-language schools only 51-49.

3. Campaigning continues during Easter holidays too. On Holy Saturday, Korčok and a few hundred supporters hiked up the Bradlo mountain and held a rally at the memorial to Milan Rastislav Štefánik, a national hero and pretty much the only uncontroversial Slovak historical political figure, with a speech about how "nationalists privatized patriotism for themselves". He also has a new campaign slogan that sums up his vision: Slúžiť ľuďom, nie Ficovi — Serve the people, not Fico.



Pellegrini and his supporters also hiked up a mountain, the nearby Veľká Javorina, and made a similar speech about how "political struggles must never take precedence over the interests of the homeland".



Then he made a cheesy video about weaving the traditional Easter whip, which will be used tomorrow to strike women so that they stay healthy and beautiful (really).

[AustralianSwingVoter]

with fabricated quotes about how he thinks Matovič is an idiot

… this is supposed to be a controversial attack???

[Flyersfan232]

how libertarian is the sas?

[Estrella]

how libertarian is the sas?

They used to be more radical, but never Milei-esque. I think this sums it up:

Founded in 2008 as a "sane" libertarian party by awkward nerdy economist Richard Sulík, who is their undisputed leader to this day. Focused on liberalism, both economic (flat tax, cut welfare benefits to "one warm meal a day") and social (registered partnerships, decriminalize weed), plus calling referenda about random populist bullshxt. They won 12% in their first election and entered the Radičová government. Even though their voters are mostly middle/upper class Bratislavans, so obviously very pro-EU, Sulík himself is an euroskeptic who made SaS join ECR. When Radičová declared the vote on the European Stability Mechanism a vote of confidence, SaS voted against and the government fell – to Sulík's inexplicable surprise. After eight years in the wilderness, SaS entered government again in 2020. By then they have significantly moderated on economics and were content with reforming the laws around small businesses and such things, but Sulík and Matovič were at each other's throats all the time. The latter's resignation didn't calm the situation and SaS finally left the coalition in 2022. At the time they were by far the most popular coalition party with 15% in the polls, but instead of helping them rise even more, their exit made them crash to barely above the threshold. Out of desperation they called a no confidence vote and... anyway, that's why we're having an early election.

SaS: 19% flat tax, simplify business regulations, fiscal decentralization by increasing municipal taxes, increase competition between railway operators and between health insurance companies, end the mandatory shop closing on holidays, "a more flexible labor law", legalize medical marijuana, introduce registered partnerships, build a new nuclear power plant, support admitting Ukraine and Georgia to EU and NATO.

Basically, after the first year or two they weren't very different from Cameron-era Tories or Westerwelle-era FDP, and today they're comparable to D66 or Radikale Venstre, though with a bigger focus on right-wing economics. Their differences with PS are mostly about emphasizing different issues.

[Estrella]

I regret to tell you that Tomáš Taraba (Minister of Environment, Život/SNS) has once again opened his mouth.

Today, Christians celebrate the biggest holiday of the year and our rosy-cheeked non-public television in the hands of Progressive Slovakia, which people have to pay for from their taxes, presents us with a 'witty story' about Zuzana Fialová on the headline of the RTVS website instead of a story about the biggest holiday. This arrogance towards our culture is exactly what I have been saying, that RTVS under the current management is a soulless piece of rubbish divorced from Slovak reality, which does not deserve a single cent of the people's taxes. We will sort it out soon!

[Estrella]

Pellegrini backed out of another debate with Korčok with the excuse that he’s busy travelling the country and talking to people in the regions. Turns out he spent the day in Bratislava and when he did move out to “the regions” to talk to “the people”, it was for a closed-door meeting with Hlas officeholders where he even joked that he knows everybody in the room. He also released ads with Genuine Voters™ who turned out to be paid actors. Seriously, what the f/ck is this campaign.

[Estrella]

After skipping the daytime radio debate, Pellegrini found the time for an evening duel on TV Markíza. Props to the presenter: he's a tough Jeremy Paxman type who kept asking uncomfortable questions of both candidates and came down on them when they went off topic or kept interrupting. Korčok had some good statesmanlike moments (things are not good and we can't lie to people about the state of the country), but IMO he came off as pretty stiff, dour, muddling and not very good at responding to presenter's questions or Pelle's attacks.

Pellegrini made good points about Korčok's political past (even though he had nothing to do with unpopular decisions of the governments he served in) and reassured moderate voters on foreign policy (no question of leaving NATO, commercial arms exports to Ukraine will continue), but he kind of boxed himself into a corner when he kept presenting himself as the government candidate and always kept circling back to how the current government is doing great things, he's going to support it in all efforts, Korčok wants to sabotage all the great things the government is doing because he's controlled by PS and so on. He also kept attacking Čaputová, which doesn't seem like a good idea – she's still by far the most popular politician in Slovakia.

The two also briefly touched on social issues: Korčok supports registered partnerships, Pellegrini opposes them but could imagine supporting a "technical" reform that would allow inheritance from a same-sex partner.

Also, one unquestionably great thing about the debate: it did not take place in an ordinary TV studio, but in the Hall of Mirrors of the grandest palace in Bratislava. They should do things like this more.


source: TV Markíza / Patrik Hopjak

Makes Chirac's "personal" endorsement of VGE in 1981 feel like the pinnacle of loyalty by comparison.

...and he did it again. The first half of the video are attacks on Korčok, NGOs, media, liberals, foreign interests, then literally two sentences about how "Peter Pellegrini is not a perfect presidential candidate, but we can be sure that in important questions, he's going to stand behind Slovakia", then attacks on SaS about how they call themselves liberals but voted for a VAT increase, used public money for Sulík's trip to Dubai, something about a former SaS minister's brother's deals with RTVS and so on.

We also finally have a fresh poll, two of them in fact:
Focus – Pellegrini 50.8%, Korčok 49.2%
NMS – Korčok 51.7%, Pellegrini 48.3%

As I said, it's a tossup. The Focus one is basically the same as the NMS poll from mid-March, but at the time it was an outlier; everyone else had Pelle on 53-55%. Focus tended to have the best numbers for Pelle in older runoff polls and NMS some of the best for Korčok, but even if it's a consistent house effect it doesn't necessarily mean much. Like, I don't think the first round polls were inaccurate, they just failed to capture a late swing.

[Storr]

A Politico EU article visiting Luník IX, a Roma neighborhood on the outskirts of Košice. They discuss why it, and more broadly Slovakia as a whole, has such abysmal turnout in EU elections.

"Jozef Fratel’s day started with a trip to a communal water pipe sticking out from the soot-covered wall of his building.

The unemployed 47-year-old lives in a flat with his girlfriend and their young son. There was electricity but no running water.

The last time he voted in an election of any kind was “maybe” 20 years ago.

Like most people in Luník IX, an impoverished Roma neighborhood on the outskirts of Slovakia’s second-largest city, Košice, he was not planning to vote in the upcoming European election.

It doesn’t make sense for him to vote, because the European Union has changed absolutely nothing in his life, Fratel said.'"

...

"Only 137 out of 4,419 registered voters in Luník IX took part in the 2019 EU election — a 3.1 percent turnout.

The neighborhood is tucked away on a hillside, under a giant open landfill, separated from the rest of the city by a freeway.

Most locals do not own cars. To get to the city center for groceries or to deal with administrative work, they have to take a special bus, segregated from the rest of the city’s public transport system.

Locals say they have seen some improvements in recent years, spurred by a new mayor who is from the Roma community and by non-governmental organizations."

...

"When Horváthová moved to Luník IX at age 15, not everyone there was Roma. But following a 1995 resolution from Košice municipal council, white people moved downtown, while Roma people living in the city — as well as non-rent payers and people deemed “socially inept” — had to relocate to Luník IX.

Today, 99 percent of Luník IX’s population is Roma — including Mayor Marcel Šaňa.

“I don’t like to call it a ghetto, but that’s what this resolution made it,” Šaňa said as echoes of Roma folk music permeated from the window of his office, located in the heart of the borough. "

...

"Most candidates don’t visit Roma settlements. And when Roma issues are brought up during campaigns or by politicians, it’s often in a negative way.

In 2019, Prime Minister Robert Fico, then in the opposition, publicly defended Milan Mazurek, a far-right lawmaker who had recently been convicted for making racist comments about Roma people.

“Mazurek only said what nearly a whole nation thinks,” Fico said in a video on Facebook. “Should we be afraid to say that part of the Roma people abuse the social system?”

And, back in Luník IX, the few Slovak politicians who do show interest in Roma issues have left behind a history of broken promises.

“When the elections are coming, they want the Gypsy vote,” said Matúš Pohlok. “But then when they are already sitting, then they forget about the minority,” the 40-year-old construction worker added."

[Estrella]

Luník IX has been slowly improving, but it's mostly thanks to the efforts of activists, NGOs and the locals (some of them, anyway). Košice city hall and national government did f/ck all, ironically probably even less than the EU which at least sent some money. Also, while it is the most visible example of the failures of Slovakia's Roma policy and the way the Smer/Hlas welfare state only applies to certain people, there are very similar ghettos in dozens of villages in the east of the country. In many cases you have a 99% "white" (yes, that's a common term) village and a 99% Roma ghetto sharing the same school, with predictable consequences.


Today was the last day of the campaign and boy howdy, was it wild.

▪ After it emerged that several Smer and Hlas politicians gave interviews to Russian propagandist website Voice of Europe, one of those politicians, Erik Kaliňák, reacted by saying that he contacted the director of the intelligence agency and asked him to carry out "a detailed background check of financial connections of all Slovak media, as well as the personal accounts of journalists".

▪ Andrej Danko announced what was his price for endorsing Pellegrini: the repeal of a regulation introduced by an expert commission under Heger's cabinet that allowed trans people to change their documents after one year of HRT, without having to undergo surgery. He got what he wanted – the ministry repealed the regulation, citing "considerable ethical and societal impact". Accordingly, he stood up on a press conference and wished Pelle the best of luck in defeating Korčok, or as he called him, "that total evil."

▪ Pellegrini's private plane trip might turn out to be more than just a minor PR faux pas. Journalists found out that the plane belongs to Peter Náhlik, a Hlas MP, who rents it out without a permit. After more digging, it was discovered that Pellegrini rents a luxury villa also owned by Náhlik, which he didn't admit to owning in property disclosure documents that all politicians have to submit. Náhlik bought the villa from a company owned by a woman who was indicted a few months ago in an investigation of massive embezzlement of money from the military intelligence agency.

▪ A businessman and major donor to Harabin's campaign admitted to having created the fake Korčok website. He also spent thousands of euros advertising it online, violating the law that prevents third parties from taking part in campaigns. The Minister of Interior (!) also blatantly broke campaign finance laws when he spent thousands of euros on ads calling Korčok "a president of war".

▪ Harabin himself might not have endorsed Pellegrini, but nearly everyone else in his political sphere did. The leader of Republika said that "we need to vote in such a way that Korčok won't win". A bunch of far-right media figures expressed more open support for Pellegrini, including the antisemite Daniel Bombic mentioned a few posts earlier, who said he hopes Pellegrini wins and Matúš Šutaj Eštok will replace him as the leader of Hlas so that Tomáš Drucker and Zuzana Dolinková – the only Hlas ministers who turned to be more than Smer bootlickers – will be "dealt with".

▪ Kubiš said he's going to vote for Pelle but won't tell his own voters who to choose. Matovič endorsed Korčok at a very high energy press conference: "If good people don't vote, evil by the name of Pellegrini will win."

▪ The last debate took place on RTVS. Both candidates were very strong and very combative. Korčok went hard after Pelle's record in government and his statements that he broadly agrees with Harabin on foreign policy, while Pellegrini attacked Korčok for being elitist and unpatriotic, quoted Pope Francis about how Ukraine needs to "raise the white flag" and strongly criticized "pointless" arms supplies to Ukraine, possibly contradicting what he said yesterday, to which Korčok reminded him that since Fico became PM, Slovak companies exported €500 million worth of weapons. Pellegrini also made a bizarre attack on Korčok about how he insulted patriotic Slovaks because the museum of the Slovak National Uprising was closed on the morning of the anniversary for an official commemoration and it opened to the public only in the afternoon, which just... what?

▪ Korčok's closing event: a 7000 strong rally.

source: Sme / Jozef Jakubčo

▪ Pellegrini's closing event: a discussion with Andrej Babiš. It was presented by Jozef Banáš, a writer (and a great one at that), former liberal MP and leader of the Slovak delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO, now an antivaxxer and pro-Putin conspiracy theorist. Pellegrini talked about how "we are interested not only in what Zelensky says every day, but also in what Putin says", Babiš spoke in a godawful Czech-Slovak pidgin and Banáš had a whole bit about Pellegrini's Italian roots and Sanpellegrino soda. The audience consisted of cabinet ministers and pensioners bused there from all over the country.

source: Sme / Jozef Jakubčo

▪ We have three more polls, showing a similarly uncertain picture to yesterday's ones:
Median – Pellegrini 51.1%, Korčok 48.9%
Scio – Korčok 55.0%, Pellegrini 45.0%
Ipsos – Korčok 50.1%, Pellegrini 49.9%

Harabin's first round voters would vote for Pelle 95-5 but with only 70% turnout, Forró voters support Pelle only 55-45 despite his endorsement and again with only 70% turnout, Kubiš voters are basically 50-50, Matovič voters would go for Korčok 95-5. In terms of parties, Pelle gets ~90% of Smer, Hlas, SNS and Republika, Korčok gets ~90% of PS, OĽANO/Slovensko and SaS. Only two parties are split: KDH voters would vote Korčok 70-30 and Alliance voters would vote Pellegrini 55-45. According to analysts, Korčok has maxed out his support (which means he'd benefit from lower turnout), but Pellegrini could still gain from wavering far-right and Hungarian voters.

In terms of age, there's the usual pattern of young people for Korčok and old people for Pelle, but the sheer intensity of the divide is really something: among voters aged 18-24, Korčok would get nearly 80%.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

really sounds like Pelle is flailing. Hopefully he loses.

[Estrella]

Pelle is a basic social democrat regardless of his campaign, which is better than his opponent, endorsed enthusiastically.

Well, what does the campaign of this basic social democrat look like?

Another dirty campaign attacks Korčok

According to information from Denník N, the flyers were printed by MOON design, a company based in Krompachy in the Spiš region, with a print run of about 10,000. [...] The owners are not known to have been politically active in the past. In addition to the yellow disinformation leaflets, the company also had leaflets printed in support of Peter Pellegrini. At the time of closing it was unclear whether the leaflets had actually been distributed. Transparency International Slovakia sources later confirmed that people were receiving them in their mailboxes.

Peter Pellegrini
Let's unite for a dignified and proud Slovakia

WARNING THREAT
What will Ivan Korčok do as president?
Korčok together with Matovič, Šimečka will do everything to collapse the government!
- he'll let others decide for us in Europe
- he'll fatally weaken Slovakia
- we'll pay for migrants
- the terrorism threat will increase
- he'll advocate for LGBTI agenda in schools for your children
Don't let Ivan Korčok and Bratislava cafés decide for you. Please vote. You, your families and your children are at stake.

And what sort of people are campaigning for him?

Fico, Kaliňák, Gašpar and Šutaj Eštok debate with him. In his spare time, he used the Hitler salute and stripped naked in the street.

"Sieg Heil, mein Freund," a familiar voice says in the video. Tens of thousands of people follow the man who owns the voice and films the video on social media. In the next video, a bald man is saluting and the cameraman returns the salute. The cameraman is the extremist and youtuber Daniel Bombic, aka Danny Kollar. In his online shows, he has hosted top representatives of Smer, including Robert Fico, Robert Kaliňák and, over the past few weeks, Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Estok of Hlas and former police president and MP Tibor Gašpar.

In response to criticism, Eštok, Gašpar, as well as Kaliňák in the past, argue that the presumption of innocence applies and claim that Bombic is being prosecuted only for his views. [...] Kaliňák defended Bombic in a similar way. "Now I am shocked by the prosecution of this Danny Kollar. Without a doubt, his vocabulary is not the most pleasant. For someone to say he wants a better future for his white children, that's supposed to be a racist crime? What, have they lost their minds, really?" he declared in July in 2022.
  
SME now has access to a number of unpublished photographs and videos of Daniel Bombic using the Hitler salute, meeting with prominent members of the neo-Nazi scene and being nude in public. The photos and videos were made in 2019 and 2020.

In several photos, Bombic also poses with Rastislav Rogel, lead singer of the neo-Nazi bands Krátky proces and Juden Mord. In another, he is also photographed with other members of the group. In other shots, Bombic is undressing and placing a rainbow flag on his genitals or buttocks. [...] The band makes no secret of their extremist views in their lyrics, for example in the very first song they sing "let's destroy Shalom, enough is enough, their star must not shine above us". Gradually the band became even more radical. Since 1999 they have performed under the name Juden Mord and released the album Arbeit Macht Frei.

Wearing a T-shirt with the words "there are only 2 genders" on it, he poses in one of the photographs with the priest Marian Kuffa, and in another he is in the same T-shirt using the Hitler salute. The hand gesture that Bombic is showing in the photo with Rogel is also a symbol for white power - the slogan of neo-Nazis. The fingers form the letters W and P. [...] Since the videos and photos weren't found on Bombic's devices, he was probably actively posting and distributing them.

This, by the way, should be a serious reality check for anyone who still thinks Hlas is a Nice Guy FF normal-ish social democratic party. They aren't.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

This, by the way, should be a serious reality check for anyone who still thinks Hlas is a Nice Guy FF normal-ish social democratic party. They aren't.

Ending your campaign with a discussion with Babiš speaks volumes to this regard. But I guess he's actually a social democrat because he was in the czech stasi?

[Estrella]

This, by the way, should be a serious reality check for anyone who still thinks Hlas is a Nice Guy FF normal-ish social democratic party. They aren't.

Ending your campaign with a discussion with Babiš speaks volumes to this regard. But I guess he's actually a social democrat because he was in the czech stasi?

He’s a social democrat because he believes in the redistribution of wealth (from the state to himself).

[Estrella]

Peak Ficoism.

Ministers for Hlas shared a doctored photo of a Ukrainian soldier and used it in campaign

Ministers for the Hlas party shared a call on the occasion of the presidential election on social media with a photo of an elderly lady hugging a soldier. It is accompanied by the slogan "Come and vote so that Slovak sons and grandsons do not die in war".

Publicist Jakub Goda pointed out that the photo has been edited. The original picture shows a Ukrainian soldier, from whose shoulder the author of the pre-election status of Hlas has deleted the Ukrainian flag. "Serves well to scare people with war, but then again they don't want to trigger people by showing empathy for Ukrainians," Goda wrote on Facebook.

[Estrella]

The polls close at 22:00 CET, an hour and a half from now. Anecdotally, turnout is similar to the first round (which would make it 52%), perhaps a little higher in places. Nothing out of the ordinary happened during the day and the moratorium will be prolonged only by five minutes.

Some links for the election night:

Denník N results page: https://dennikn.sk/prezidentske-volby-2024/ (probably the best)
Pravda results page: https://volby.pravda.sk/prezidentske-volby/vysledky (also really good)
RTVS livestream: https://www.rtvs.sk/televizia/live-1 (Slovak public TV)
ČT24 livestream: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/zive-vysilani-ct24-46670#live (Czech public TV, usually has great coverage and covers Slovak elections for the same reason Australian TV covers New Zealand elections)

[Germany1994]

Will we get Exit polls??

[Estrella]

Will we get Exit polls??

No 'real' exit polls (in Slovakia they suck anyway), but we might get a 'normal' poll collected over the last few days (which won't necessarily be any better). But the count will be very quick and sometime after midnight or 1AM at the latest it should be certain who won.

[Estrella]

RTVS poll: Korčok 51.1%, Pellegrini 48.9%, turnout estimate 55%.

[Storr]

RTVS poll: Korčok 51.1%, Pellegrini 48.9%, turnout estimate 55%.

After last year’s parliamentary exit polling flop, I’ve learned not to get my hopes up when it comes to Slovak polling. Despite that, it’s not a bad thing that Korčok is leading in an exit poll.

[Estrella]

RTVS poll: Korčok 51.1%, Pellegrini 48.9%, turnout estimate 55%.

After last year’s parliamentary exit polling flop, I’ve learned not to get my hopes up when it comes to Slovak polling. Despite that, it’s not a bad thing that Korčok is leading in an exit poll.

Idk, the first round not-actually-exit-poll underestimated Pelle by 2 and Korčok by like 8, but it would be completely in character for Slovak polling to be wrong in the opposite direction for no reason.

[RGM2609]

The first votes came in and Pellegrini started at 71%. I assume this is all heavily rural.

[Estrella]

The first votes came in and Pellegrini started at 71%. I assume this is all heavily rural.

Yeah. Now it’s 15% counted and Pelle 66%, Korčok 34%, turnout 53%.

[Logical]

Denník N model projection has it at PP 50.4%, Korcok 49.6%.
Way too close to call.

[jaichind]

Denník N model projection has it at PP 50.4%, Korcok 49.6%.
Way too close to call.

It just flipped to Korčok narrow win

[Estrella]

49% counted — Pelle 59%, Korčok 41%, turnout 57%