Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[Estrella]

Are DV positioning themselves as a centre-right party? I assumed they'd go for a sort of 'we're Smer but nice' approach.

When they started I assumed that as well, but they don't seem to have any real policies besides non-ideological fluff (more €s for hospitals, less corruption etc). They are definitely anti-Smer in its current form, so I put them together with other anti-Smer parties.

Seems very fragmented, so what is the most likely coalition or is this one like Belgium that could take months to find out who forms government.  Or could it be like Israel and Spain where they need second or even third elections to resolved?

No idea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Keep in mind, this is Eastern Europe and thirst for power will trump everything, so there will be some kind of agreements without needing another election. If the push comes to shove, Smer could very well agree to a minority coalition supported by ĽSNS - they've pondered about that option before.

[Estrella]

Can you tell me about Dobrá Voľba? There’s no wiki link and I don’t see any time you mentioned them beforehand.

A splinter off Smer, led by ex-Health Minister Tomáš Drucker. The "platform" on their website says literally nothing (healthcare good! corruption bad! economic growth good! tax evasion bad!), but they don't seem to have inherited any of Smer's nationalist/socon nastiness.

Pretty dire options for a principled leftist. How do you, Estrella, plan on voting? Also, is there much of a difference between PS-SPOLU and Za Ľudí, and are they likely to be allies or coalition partners?

If Greens or Socialists had any chance of getting over the threshold, I could consider voting for them, but right now it looks like I'll go PS-Spolu.

The clearest difference between the two is on social issues, where PS-Spolu is rather progressive (secular, pro-LGBT etc.) while Za ľudí doesn't want to talk about them. Also, PS-Spolu has many big personalities but Za ľudí is bankrolled by Kiska who unquestionably runs the show (though he's not the only public face of the party).


Anyway, the Minister of Environment, László Sólymos, resigned yesterday after this happened: he and his brother got drunk as hell, went to a Chinese restaurant to go to the toilet, the owner told them to go away, the brother got angry and smashed the restaurant's glass door, the two refused to pay for the damage and started yelling at the owner and his son, telling them to "go back to China."

Despite this, Sólymos is staying on as no. 3 on the Most-Híd list, which I am sure will dramatically improve the party's image. [something something joke country]

[Estrella]

  Closer to the election will there be some of the electorate deserting their first choice party if they think they don't have a good chance passing the 5% threshold? Right now it looks like alot of parties are right near it.  Would a Vlast voter go to LNS, a DV voter go back to Smer or the left parties, and what about the Hungarian party supporters, who might end up dividing themselves out of parliament altogether?
Also, what is the big difference between LSNS and SNS? Do they share the same electorate base?

No one knows, because:
1. The polls universally suck
2. Maybe it's just a consequence of 1., but there isn't such thing as tactical voting. Case in point, in 2016 it looked like #Sieť ends up as the leading opposition party and SaS might fall under the threshold. Yet, on election day SaS came second and #Sieť just barely squeaked in.

There's not much data on this, but ĽSNS does the best among young people, while SNS is just Smer on steroids these days (they're surprisingly left wing economically), so they probably share Smer's older, rural base.

[Estrella]

Wait there have been talls of Smer-L'SNS cooperation? Aren't they literal nazis?

How and why?

They are two sns the sns in government is ur typical national populist party L sns are the nazis it.

Indeed there are, but Fico is seemingly open to cooperation with ĽSNS (the nazis), maybe even a confidence and supply deal to get a majority...

...which is understandable, but also completely surreal because, as I found out just this morning, Fico is really angry about prosecution of Ľuboš Blaha (a Chavista Smer hack) for this photo.

Toss a coin: cry or laugh about this?

[Estrella]

If any of you feel the pressing need to declare your endorsement for political parties in foreign countries, you can take a quiz at volbydoparlamentu.sk.  It's Slovak only, but Google Translate does decently. Some questions that might need clarification:

Do you agree with the imposition of penalties on producers if double quality food is shown? - There have been some scandals about revelations that multinationals often sell goods of the same brand and with same packaging in both Western and Eastern Europe, but the goods sold in the East are lower quality than the ones in the West. This is a pet issue especially for Smer, who have tried to push through European legislation to ban this practice.

Do you agree with the cancellation of meal cards (gastro cards)? - By law, employers are obliged to pay for their employees' lunches, either by providing food in the company canteen, or by giving them special coupons to buy it elsewhere.

Do you agree with the abolition of pension ceilings? - Do you want to lift the cap on retirement age?

Are you in favor of the public election of public officials elected by MEPs? - This has nothing to do with MEPs, it's asking if you think positions elected by the parliament (Constitutional Court judges, prosecutor general, ...) should be elected directly.

Do you agree to the abolition of one constituency for parliamentary elections? - Currently, the parliament is elected in a single nationwide constituency, like in Netherlands or Israel.

Do you agree that judges should undergo security screening? - Do you want judges to take a background check to uncover any ties with criminals, mafia, etc.?

Do you agree that the Ministry of the Interior should filter out and misinform on the Internet? - *filter out misinformation

Do you agree to order the exact time for a fee from outpatient doctors? - Should patients be able to pay to see a doctor at a particular date and time, instead of coming to the hospital and waiting for their turn?

Do you agree with the nationalization (privatization) of hospitals? - *denationalization

Do you agree with the labeling of municipalities in the languages ​​of national minorities (the labeling currently applies to municipalities where the proportion of national minorities exceeds 20%)? - Should places with a >20% ethnic minority have bilingual place name signs, like this?

Do you agree with the current version of the Dual Citizenship Act? - After Hungary promised to give out passports to Hungarians abroad, Slovakia banned dual citizenship.

Do you agree with strengthening the autonomy of the regions of southern Slovakia? - ie. regions with a Hungarian majority.


Here's a graph of all opinion polls since just before the last election, from politico.eu. Zoom in and you'll see an OĽANO surge in the past couple of weeks, to 10% and third place.

(Not that it's amazingly useful, because we have, what, four parties with some shade of green as their color. That's as bad as Ireland, and we don't even have green in our flag!)

[Estrella]

Sme Rodina at 75%.

K.

what

So can someone tell me if my read on the election is correct? Slovak elections are messier and more fragmented than Brazilian elections

A liberal-conservative bloc is likely, though far from guaranteed, to unseat the socially conservative Socialist Smer party. Practically, that would mean a more pro-Europe, liberalized economic and foreign policy and a more socially liberal approach towards migrants and lgbt issues. If somehow Smer pulls it out then they will likely need to ally with actual Nazis to get a majority in parliament.

How accurate is this?

Nyes...if your head is spinning from the sheer number of parties, you can split them into a 'left-nationalist' and 'liberal-conservative' block, based on actual ideological differences, but when it comes to coalition negotiations, that's beyond useless. After the election four years ago, it took just 18 days (!) to convince the loudest anti-Fico parties (Most-Híd and the late #Sieť) to join Smer, hammer out a coalition agreement and let Fico continue as if nothing happened. Besides, the latter block is definitely more conservative than liberal.

Got Dobrá voľba at 78%. What are their ideologies? Is their leader a former member of Smer-SD?

A party of Tomáš Drucker, ex-Smer Minister of Health, built around Drucker's money, personality and fluffy moderate heroism.

[Estrella]

So wait, there are actual socialists or chavistas in Smer-SD?

Well, they have one high-profile far-leftist MP, Ľuboš Blaha. I've been calling him a Chavista because he has that air of authoritarian leftism around him, but this intrigued me and as I read up more about him, I found out he's probably closer to a literal tankie. His Facebook (because that is where political debate takes place in Slovakia, not Twitter) is full of rants about (((liberals))), Islam, "Russophobia", capitalism, the evil Ukraine and America, EU, consumerism ("children of hamburgers") and similar stuff that you'd expect from parties like KKE or far-right. The rest of Smer is nothing like him, but I'm guessing that as long as he doesn't threaten the party's top cats, they're willing to tolerate him. If you want less insane hard-left, there's Eduard Chmelár and his party Socialisti.sk. They might get 1-2% if they're lucky, though.

Is there any reason for OL'anos upward trend in the recent polls? They appear to have a good chance for second place (in a bit better position that Kotleba) and only trail Smer by 4-5 points in the last polls before the polling ban.

I've heard that it might be because people see Matovič as more experienced? No idea if that's what it is, though.


Also, he polls are apparently quite bad for the government because - even though the last session ended a couple of weeks ago - they called an emergency session of the parliament to pass several "please vote for us" spending packages. The opposition's response to this was a chaotic attempt at a filibuster, until they gave up and the Speaker rescheduled the session to Tuesday.

[Estrella]

So, today's the day. The polls are open 7:00-22:00, but due to incidents that interrupted voting (death of a voter in one case, death of one of the polling station staff in another), the affected polling stations will not close until 23:00 CET - only then can the exit polls and results be released.

Some super anecdotal data - young people who go to what you probably could call a grammar school vote overwhelmingly OĽANO and PS-Spolu (my school held a mock election and Smer got like 3% lol), I went for the latter of those, my parents both voted Za ľudí (2016: mum #Sieť, dad Most-Híd), my gran (previously a Smer/SNS voter) for Dobrá voľba. tURnoUt RepOrTs, for all their uselessness, say that turnout is high, possibly up from last time around: it was 55-59% in last four parliamentary elections, which isn't bad for these parts of the world, but it's a very steep decline from 84% in 1998 and 94% (!) in the first free election in 1990.

The last poll - illegal, by the way, but you can just publish them in Czechia without all the aubergines/oranges/papal conclaves stuff you get elsewhere - had some very promising numbers: OĽANO 19%, Smer 16%, ĽSNS 10%, PS-Spolu 9%, Sme rodina 7%, SaS 7%, Za ľudí 6%, KDH 5%, everyone else not getting in. Igormentum is real!

The best site to watch the results is volby.sme.sk - in Slovak, but Google Translate does fine.

[Estrella]

Is there a meaningful difference between Smer and PiS in Poland?

There actually is - Smer didn't turn towards Polish/Hungarian soft authoritarianism even when it had a majority by itself, it comes from the opposite side of political spectrum (descending from Communists rather than Catholic/conservative/nationalist movements) and, despite occasional rambling, is much more pro-EU - I can't see a PiS-led government leading Poland into the Eurozone.

If OL'ANO gets the most seats, what type of coalition would they try to form?

Anything that gets rid of Smer and doesn't include Kotleba. Something like OĽANO-PS Spolu-Za ľudí-SaS plus one other partner - perhaps KDH or maaaaybe Sme rodina.

[Estrella]

A TV livestream, if anyone wants to watch: https://www.rtvs.sk/televizia/live-1. No idea if it works abroad, though.

[Estrella]

Exit poll:

OĽANO 25%
Smer 14%
PS Spolu 9%
ĽSNS 9%
Sme rodina 8%
SaS 7%
Za ľudí 6%
KDH 5%

Everyone else under the threshold

[Estrella]

Some quick takeaways:

- Really, horribly, disastrously bad result for Smer: they are set to be halved compared to 2016, which already was an underwhelming number and steep fall from their 44% landslide victory in 2012.

- It's also a catastrophic result for the whole governing coalition: from 49% in 2016, its constituent parties look like they're getting 18-20% tonight. This is a Canada 1993 / Poland 2001 scale of defeat.

- Encouragingly, other nationalists and populists are also having a very meh night: Both Sme rodina and ĽSNS gaining all but crumbs, Vlasť stalling at the start line and SNS falling to an awful 3%.

- At the first glance, Matovič may seem like an acerbic, loudmouthed populist - don't get me wrong, he is one, and I don't really like him as a person, but he's also a policy wonk and ideologically a moderate, mainstream conservative. His victory speech sounded pretty good - like mentioning how he's proud of having Roma and Hungarians on his party's list.

- Three parties are dancing within one point of the threshold: Za ľudí, KDH and MKÖ (the other Hungarian party besides Most). We'll have to wait and see how they end up.

[Estrella]

Really emotional and hopeful speech at the OĽANO headquarters by Ján Budaj and Milan Kňažko, two leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, calling this election a "third step" in bringing in freedom after the revolution and the 1998 vote that tossed out Vladimír Mečiar. 

Anyway, what explain this huge defeat? The exit poll tells the story:

Are you satisfied with the current situation in Slovakia?
40% Very dissatisfied
40% Rather dissatisfied
16% Rather satisfied
3% Very satisfied
1% Didn't say

Smer was the ruling party for 12 of the past 14 years, and their neverending list of scandals has come back to bite them - and how!

[Estrella]

  So a lot of wasted votes, especially if KDH doesnt make it.

Nothing new - 10+% wasted votes is completely normal, and in 1992 it was as high as 24%.

[Estrella]

15% in. Oľano 23, Smer 22, ĽSNS 9, Sme rodina 9, PS Spolu 5, Za ľudí 5, SaS 4, SNS 4, MKÖ 4, DV 3, Vlasť 3, turnout 64.8% (+5 points).

Smer held its press conference, and Fico - still the official party leader - didn't even show up. PM Pellegrini admitted that Smer was "burdened" by what happened in the past years but otherwise kept stonewalling.

[Estrella]

Wow. Wow. What an embarassment. 99.9% in, PS Spolu at 6.96%. When Kiska and Matovič started rising, they should have known that their wave of being the main anti-Smer party wouldn't last and that most people consider them too hipster and liberal, but they vaingloriously refused to merge and we ended up with this. I held great hope for them as people who would finally break through the conservative mold of politics-as-usual and move this country in a better direction, but they deserve every last bit of this for their sheer stupidity. </rant>

[Estrella]

 Am I reading this correctly that PS Spolu needs 7% and might not get in? and that Smer, LSNS and SR might have a majority? Would they work together to stop an OLANO government from being formed?

I mean, I assume SaS and ZL will supporr OLANO, and those parties slipping over the threshold should make all the difference. Including those parties an OLANO-led bloc has a 77-71 lead in terms of seat distribution. But, yes, Caputova's Progressive party will likely not make it, but I would imagine they would probably be harder to work with than ZL and SaS, who are closer to the right wing, economically liberal position of OLANO.

A weird result, for sure.

Matovič (Oľano) and Kollár (Sme rodina) have been getting friendly with each other since the results came out - the latter doing a 180° from populist rants to saying how he wants to join a government where he can help the people who were left behind etc. He's actually pretty lefty on economics, and Matovič and Kiska (Za ľudí) are very different from the libertarian Sulík (SaS). That makes Oľano+Sme rodina+Za ľudí the most compatible coalition ideologically. 82 seats is more than enough for a defection-proof majority.

[Estrella]

 Am I reading this correctly that PS Spolu needs 7% and might not get in? and that Smer, LSNS and SR might have a majority? Would they work together to stop an OLANO government from being formed?

I mean, I assume SaS and ZL will supporr OLANO, and those parties slipping over the threshold should make all the difference. Including those parties an OLANO-led bloc has a 77-71 lead in terms of seat distribution. But, yes, Caputova's Progressive party will likely not make it, but I would imagine they would probably be harder to work with than ZL and SaS, who are closer to the right wing, economically liberal position of OLANO.

A weird result, for sure.

Matovič (Oľano) and Kollár (Sme rodina) have been getting friendly with each other since the results came out - the latter doing a 180° from populist rants to saying how he wants to join a government where he can help the people who were left behind etc. He's actually pretty lefty on economics, and Matovič and Kiska (Za ľudí) are very different from the libertarian Sulík (SaS). That makes Oľano+Sme rodina+Za ľudí the most compatible coalition ideologically. 82 seats is more than enough for a defection-proof majority.

So this would actually be a considerably more right wing government than currently exists right now , correct?

Eh, not really. Probably a bit more economically liberal, especially if SaS joins, but then Matovič has promised not to cut social programs (which are very popular anyway). Socially, they may even be slightly social liberal than their predecessors - SaS are libertarians, OĽANO and Za ľudí are slightly socon, but not in an unhinged SNS-like way and Kollár seems to care more about economic issues.

[Estrella]

Final tallies

Turnout | 65.80% | +5.98 | best since 2002

OĽANO | 25.02% | +13.99 | 53 seats | +34
Smer-SD | 18.29% | -9.99 | 38 seats | -11
Sme rodina | 8.24% | +1.61 | 17 seats | +6
ĽSNS | 7.97% | -0.07 | 17 seats | +3
PS-Spolu | 6.96% | new | 0 seats | n/a
SaS | 6.22% | -5.88 | 13 seats | -8
Za ľudí | 5.77% | new | 12 seats | n/a
KDH | 4.65% | -0.29 | 0 seats | nc
MKÖ | 3.90% | -0.15 | 0 seats | nc
SNS | 3.16% | -5.48 | 0 seats | -15
Dobrá voľba | 3.06% | new | 0 seats | n/a
Vlasť | 2.93% | new | 0 seats | n/a
Most-Híd | 2.05% | -4.45 | 0 seats | -11
Others | 1.78%

Wasted votes | 28.49% | +15.32 | highest number ever

Outgoing coalition | 23.50% | -25.53 | 38 seats | -47

There's a nice clickable results map at volby.sme.sk/parlamentne-volby/2020/vysledky.

All in all, maybe not an amazing, but for sure a pretty good result: fascists actually losing votes, other nationalists treading water, Cosa Nostra falling through the floor, liberals not getting in but conservatives and Matovič are probably the best we could realistically hope for.

In a couple of days, the president is going to invite all the party leaders (except Kotleba, if precedent from last time holds) for talks and Igor Matovič is going to be the first to get the opportunity to form a coalition.

[Estrella]

 Am I reading this correctly that PS Spolu needs 7% and might not get in? and that Smer, LSNS and SR might have a majority? Would they work together to stop an OLANO government from being formed?

I mean, I assume SaS and ZL will supporr OLANO, and those parties slipping over the threshold should make all the difference. Including those parties an OLANO-led bloc has a 77-71 lead in terms of seat distribution. But, yes, Caputova's Progressive party will likely not make it, but I would imagine they would probably be harder to work with than ZL and SaS, who are closer to the right wing, economically liberal position of OLANO.

A weird result, for sure.

Matovič (Oľano) and Kollár (Sme rodina) have been getting friendly with each other since the results came out - the latter doing a 180° from populist rants to saying how he wants to join a government where he can help the people who were left behind etc. He's actually pretty lefty on economics, and Matovič and Kiska (Za ľudí) are very different from the libertarian Sulík (SaS). That makes Oľano+Sme rodina+Za ľudí the most compatible coalition ideologically. 82 seats is more than enough for a defection-proof majority.

Don't Kollár and some of his MPs also have links to organised crime?

No idea about his MPs, but Kollár himself likely does - that was overshadowed by other events until now, but it might start coming to the surface.

[Estrella]

Well, that was fast.

Yesterday evening, OĽANO, Sme rodina, SaS and Za ľudí finally agreed on a four-party "cloverleaf" coalition after just 13 days of negotiations - the desire to prevent Pellegrini from getting credit for handling corona played a part for sure. The deal should be finalized in the next week or so and we'll get Prime Minister Matovič and with him a change of guards in every ministry in the middle of a huge crisis :/

Weirdly, while many countries seem to be in a this-is-fine-says-the-dog-in-a-burning-house mode, it's the exact opposite here. The first case was registered last Friday, but supermarket shelves were emptying already a week before that. We're at 32 cases now, the government has declared an "extraordinary situation", closed the borders, airports, schools, shopping centres, cinemas etc etc etc, limited public transport and bragged about how we have the second strictest set of measures in Europe after Italy.

At least they're doing something.

[Estrella]

The PM-elect on a press conference about the negotiations

[Estrella]

Stumbled upon some mighty good news about young voters:



Maaaybeee this country isn't utterly doomed after all?

[Estrella]

Amidst all the chaos, since yesterday we have a new government:

Prime Minister: Igor Matovič (OĽaNO)
Finance: Eduard Heger (OĽaNO)
Interior: Roman Mikulec (OĽaNO)
Foreign and European Affairs: Ivan Korčok (SaS)
Economy: Richard Sulík (SaS)
Health: Marek Krajčí (OĽaNO)
Education: Branislav Gröhling (SaS)
Defence: Jaroslav Naď (OĽaNO)
Labour and Social Affairs: Milan Krajniak (SR)
Justice: Mária Kolíková (ZĽ)
Transport: Andrej Doležal (SR)
Culture: Natália Milanová (OĽaNO)
Agriculture: Ján Mičovský (OĽaNO)
Environment: Ján Budaj (OĽaNO)
Regional Development and Investments: Veronika Remišová (ZĽ)

Coalition (OĽaNO, SR, SaS, ZĽ): 95 seats (a supermajority enabling them to change the Constitution)
Opposition (Smer-SD, Kotleba): 55 seats

In other news, despite the lockdown, the trial of several judges bribed by Marián Kočner is still on *looks at Israel with a frown* It's like a small Tangentopoli and a fitting end to the era of Smer. So what's better than going to the beginning of that era and taking a look at a Smer ad from their first election in 2002?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6A_82-p3tM

What Fico is saying over the weirdly upbeat music that doesn't really fit the content of the ad is this:

Smer was never afraid to call things by their name. [... some stuff about farmers ... ] We also have the courage to talk about the irresponsible growth of Roma population. Even though we're going to be criticised abroad, we're prepared to lead a social policy that will require parents to take responsibility for raising their children. [...] We will do everything to prevent the time bomb of growth of Roma population from exploding and the ethno-tourism [sic] of speculator population groups from discriminating the rest of the country. Stay with us and vote for order.

[Estrella]

Given the government has a supermajority, have they announced any sort of constitutional changes they want to make?

They haven't mentioned anything, and there isn't talk of any problems that could be solved by changing the constitution. Of course, they might come up with something once this crisis is over.