Slovak Elections and Politics: presidential runoff on 6 April 🇸🇰
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  Slovak Elections and Politics: presidential runoff on 6 April 🇸🇰
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Poll
Question: Who would you vote for? 🇸🇰🗳️
#1
Peter Pellegrini (Hlas-Smer)
 
#2
Ivan Korčok (SaS-PS-KDH)
 
#3
Štefan Harabin (far-right)
 
#4
Patrik Dubovský (conservative)
 
#5
Igor Matovič (Slovensko)
 
#6
Andrej Danko (SNS)
 
#7
Marian Kotleba (ĽSNS)
 
#8
Ján Kubiš (independent)
 
#9
Other
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 36

Author Topic: Slovak Elections and Politics: presidential runoff on 6 April 🇸🇰  (Read 75968 times)
Estrella
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« Reply #200 on: February 13, 2021, 01:56:48 PM »

Though honestly, I don't miss Hungarian parties in parliament at all. Most-Híd... well, their split from SMK was a result of a clash of egos between leader Béla Bugár and his deputy József Berényi (despite the posturing about how it's because SMK is too nationalist or something), then entering a coalition with Fico despite being unequivocally opposed just days before, then threatening to kill the coalition over the Kuciak murder but chickening out... and that thing with how their Minister of Environment had to resign because he got publicly drunk, ransacked a Chinese restaurant and yelled racial slurs at the owner doesn't help either.

As for SMK... hm.

Storytime: SMK has close relations with an organization called Csemadok. The name stands for Czechoslovak Hungarian Workers' Cultural Association but, well, nobody has bothered to change it. What they used to do during the Commie era and for some years after was stuff like folk music concerts, theatre productions, nature outings for retirees and such. Over time, older members died off and very few young people joined. Those who did were less interested in cheesy folk dances and more in politicking. They brought the organization closer to SMK and spent most of the time praising Daddy Orbán and parroting his talking points about immigrants, protecting good Christian people from (((liberalism))), standing up to Brussels and so on. My dad used to be involved in a local chapter but quit in frustration over this.

One more thing: there are many, many completely batsh/t Slovak nationalists, but there are plenty of Hungarian nationalists in this country too. Case in point: randomly meeting with a former friend of my dad, who is still a member of Csemadok and also the mayor of a nearby town, a position for which his most important qualification is switching parties like socks. First thing he said was an outraged "I heard you go to a Slovak-language school?! But you speak Hungarian... right?" *death stare* Yes, I do but what the f/ck has that to do with it.

(Last time I heard of him was when some guys from my high school went to his town to present a Christmas play to some schoolkids. He apparently yelled at them for not doing it in Hungarian lmao)

/rant
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Estrella
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« Reply #201 on: February 13, 2021, 01:57:22 PM »

It's also possible that a brand new Hungarian party will be created, without connections to the old ones. That wouldn'ŧ be the first time. Over the last thirty years, Hungarians in Slovakia had a million different parties, because of f/cking course. Besides SMK-MKP (Party of Hungarian Coalition Community) and Most-Híd (Bridge-Bridge (yes, seriously)), there was also MKDH (Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement), ESWS (Együttélés-Spolužitie-Wspólnota-Soužití, or Coexistence in English; in theory a party for all ethnic minorities but in reality dominated by Hungarians), MOS-MPP (Hungarian Civic Party), Hungarian Coalition, Hungarian Popular Movement for Reconciliation and Prosperity, Hungarian Christian Democratic Alliance, Hungarian Forum and Hungarian Unity Tongue
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Estrella
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« Reply #202 on: February 14, 2021, 10:49:49 AM »

Announcing that if not for the pandemic, your Minister of Economy would've been sacked, and announcing it casually in an interview with a foreign newspaper no less... that's certainly a novel way of solving coalition disputes.

Quote
Vous pensez donc toujours que votre ministre de l’économie, Richard Sulik, issu de vos alliés du parti Liberté et Solidarité, est responsable de 4 000 morts en Slovaquie ? Pourquoi le gardez-vous au gouvernement ?

Il y a un lien de cause ŕ effet évident. Dans une situation normale, il ne devrait plus ętre ministre. Mais, pour l’instant, notre coalition doit faire face ŕ la pandémie et au dragon de la mafia, qui s’est emparé de l’Etat.
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Flyersfan232
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« Reply #203 on: February 14, 2021, 10:57:06 AM »

Announcing that if not for the pandemic, your Minister of Economy would've been sacked, and announcing it casually in an interview with a foreign newspaper no less... that's certainly a novel way of solving coalition disputes.

Quote
Vous pensez donc toujours que votre ministre de l’économie, Richard Sulik, issu de vos alliés du parti Liberté et Solidarité, est responsable de 4 000 morts en Slovaquie ? Pourquoi le gardez-vous au gouvernement ?

Il y a un lien de cause ŕ effet évident. Dans une situation normale, il ne devrait plus ętre ministre. Mais, pour l’instant, notre coalition doit faire face ŕ la pandémie et au dragon de la mafia, qui s’est emparé de l’Etat.

so early elections?
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Estrella
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« Reply #204 on: February 14, 2021, 11:14:58 AM »

Announcing that if not for the pandemic, your Minister of Economy would've been sacked, and announcing it casually in an interview with a foreign newspaper no less... that's certainly a novel way of solving coalition disputes.

Quote
Vous pensez donc toujours que votre ministre de l’économie, Richard Sulik, issu de vos alliés du parti Liberté et Solidarité, est responsable de 4 000 morts en Slovaquie ? Pourquoi le gardez-vous au gouvernement ?

Il y a un lien de cause ŕ effet évident. Dans une situation normale, il ne devrait plus ętre ministre. Mais, pour l’instant, notre coalition doit faire face ŕ la pandémie et au dragon de la mafia, qui s’est emparé de l’Etat.

so early elections?

I'm pretty sure that they will stay together for the sake of the kids until the pandemic is over-ish and then... well, it's too early to tell. The coalition has a majority even without SaS, but Sme rodina and Za ľudí seem to be getting fed up too. An early election is entirely possible, but if Matovič calms down a little and stops insulting his ministers - a big if, I know - then they might be able to keep it together somehow.
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Estrella
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« Reply #205 on: February 23, 2021, 05:14:49 PM »

Um, so, should this go into the Czech thread or Slovak thread?

Never mind, I tossed a coin and got heads, so Slovak thread it is.

Czechoslovak parliamentary election 1946

Map and writeup created by nanwe on DeviantArt.



Quote
The Czechoslovak election of 1946 was one of the only two free elections held in the post-WWII period in what would become Soviet-occupied Europe. Unlike the Hungarian 1946 elections, where the Soviet Army remained in place and therefore played a role in influencing the electoral results (not that it did much good for the Hungarian Communists), Czechoslovakia had no foreign military presence to influence the outcome.

However, the conditions of the vote were a bit authoritarian. In 1946, and following the Benes decrees, the over two million German-speakers and half a million Hungarian-speakers who had not proven their loyalty to Czechoslovakia in the 1935-1945 period were to be expelled from the country. Needless to say, they did not get a vote on that or a vote in the election for that matter. Only Czechs, Slovaks and other Slavs were allowed to vote. Furthermore, as a part of the Kosice Government Programme of 1945 [1], only the parties that belonged to the National Front were allowed to run in the election. Unlike later in the Communist era, the parties had strong differences of opinion on most topics. This meant that the Republican Party, the most important centre-right party of the interwar period was not allowed to compete, its voters divided between the People's Party (CSL) and the National Socialists (CSNS), the two most right-wing members of the coalition in the Czech lands.

The most important party in the National Front, especially after the election, was the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which paradoxically only run in the Czech portion of the country. The Communists controlled the Interior Ministry, indirectly the Defence one and the ministries that were in charge of the resettlement of ethnic Czech and Slovaks in the former German-speaking areas of the Sudetenland. This explains their strength in those parts of the country. Its Slovak cousin, the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) was very weak, however. Slovakia had suffered the most from the Soviet offensive and the Soviets did not behave nor were welcomed as liberators, as it did happen in the Czech parts of the country. That combined with the ability of the Slovak Democratic Party to rally anti-Communists and autonomist against them meant that the KSS was only useful as a tool for the Communists to win extra cabinet seats.

The largest of the non-communist parties was the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (CSNS), the party of Benes and Masaryk, a sort of Fabian-esque bourgeois socialist, socially liberal party that was also quite nationalistic. The CSNS had been one of the most important parties of the interwar period and they become the second most-voted party, although far away from the Communists. The CSNS was particularly strong in the cities, coming first in Brno and Ostrava and nearly coming first in Prague itself. The party was the go-to option for most right-wing Czechs in Bohemia, as the territory lacked the active Catholicism that was a fundamental factor in voting for the Czechoslovak People's Party.

The Czechoslovak People's Party (CSL), or the Populists was (and is) a Christian Democratic party (more in the Italian DC or French MRP vein than the German CDU) that benefitted from its strong roots in historically religious and rural Moravia, but also from an influx of former Republican voters. Because of this, it was the third largest party in parliament. The CSL's Slovak counterpart was the Freedom Party (SS), created in 1945 as a Christian democratic alternative to the Democratic Party that only achieved 3 seats, totally overshadowed by the Democrats.

The Democratic Party (DS) was the electoral juggernaut of Slovak politics at this time. Created by the merger of the non-communist members of the Slovak National Council, the Slovak anti-fascist resistance, the party essentially brought together the two most important political tendencies of interwar Slovakia, Christian Democratic autonomism-to-nationalism (Hlinka's Slovak People's Party) and agrarianism. The anti-communist nature of the party, combined with its calls for regional autonomy (as opposed to the KSS' preference for rule from Prague) won the party an unexpectedly high amount of votes, 64%. The party did, however, contain numerous politicians with ties to the Tiso regime, which was very effectively exploited by the Communist-controlled police and newspapers to weaken it little by little, applying salami tactics.

Next up was the Czechoslovak Social Democracy (CSSD). The Social Democrats had managed to be, during the interwar period, the most significant left-wing party in the country had been reduced to the status of being the smallest of the large parties of the National Front, with many of its voters departing for the Communists. To further that, the party was internally wrecked by divisions between the pro-Communist left-wing of the party (many times more radical than even the KSC) led by Zdenek Fierlinger [2], who served as Prime Minister between 1945 and until the election; and the party's anti-Communist right-wing, led by Vaclav Majer [3]. To top this all off, the party's Slovak branch, already weaker than the KSC in the interwar period, merged with the Communists during the war. Those few Social Democrats that refused to formed the Labour Party (SP), which would merge in 1947 with the Social Democrats to become the party's Slovak branch.

As it turned out, 1946 was the last free election in the country until 1990. The Communists came out as the strongest by far party in terms of seats and votes, although they fell short of their goal of obtaining a majority of both, at least in the Czech portion of the country. They came closer to that number than any party since the independence of the country in 1918. The period between 1946 and 1947 was relatively calm, as the Constituent National Assembly slowly drafted a new constitution, the economy was nationalised (by 1948, 60% of all industry was state-owned) and relations between the parties were good. However, the Communists which controlled directly or indirectly the country's most vital ministries were turning the police into a Communist party branch, and same with the state security service. The military was controlled by a Communist-friendly General who served as Minister of Defence, and the party was very powerful in the trade union movement.

By late 1947 and into 1948, as tensions in the coalition rose over the evident Communist attempts at appropriating the state security apparatus to their benefit, and the place of Czechoslovakia between the West and the Soviet Union combined with constitutional conflicts over the future status of Slovakia were breaking up the coalition.

At the same time, as it turned out, Communist sympathisers in the police forces had begun a fear campaign against non-Communist politicians, sending mail bombs and so on. On February 1948, the cabinet voted aˇfor firing from the police these 6 policemen, but the Communist minister (and premier) refused to carry out the order, causing a constitutional crisis. As a result, the non-Communist ministers resigned hoping that President Benes would ask Communist Premier Gottwald to resign and replace him with a non-Communist premier. The Communists, however, organised massive demonstrations and strikes that gathered over 2 million people. Combined with the Defence Minister's unwillingness to mobilise the Army against them - and the Communist sympathies of the police forces - forced Benes to allow Gottwald to form an all-Communist cabinet, essentially putting an end to the democratic experience and bringing forward a 41-year single-party regime.

[1] An agreement between the Communist Parties, the People's Party, the National Socialists, the Social Democrats and the national Slovak resistance parties (Democratic Party & Freedom Party) and the Labour Party, a social democratic party created in Slovakia by the right-wing social democrats who refused to merge with the Slovak Communist Party in 1945. The Programme called for the expropriation of German- and Hungarian-owned industries and lands, to be nationalised and for the nationalisation of the 'commanding heights' of the economy, among other measures.
[2] Known after 1948 as Doctor Quislinguer, Fierlinger had been the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Moscow during WWII and was rumoured to be an NKVD operative. He was amongst the strongest proponents of the merger between the Communists and the Social Democrats.
[3] By late 1947, the anti-communists had come to dominate the party, replacing Fierlinger as party leader with Bohumil Lausman, a centrist social democrat (in terms of neither being on the right nor the left wing of the party). The left-wing Social Democrats, Fierlinger included, however, remained in the cabinet. And would play an important role in guaranteeing the Communist success in the 1948 coup.
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Estrella
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« Reply #206 on: February 23, 2021, 05:23:13 PM »
« Edited: February 23, 2021, 05:26:40 PM by Estrella »

The above guide and analysis is great, but there's one thing I disagree with: the reasons for Communists' poor result in Slovakia. I agree with the parts about how Communists were hurt by their centralism and Democrats' co-option of Slovak nationalist movements, but from what I know, Communists' showing had less to do with how people viewed the Red Army and more with simple sociological factors. Slovakia was much less industrialized, dominated by agriculture and most importantly very, very strongly Catholic. The same dynamic can be seen in Czechia, with red Bohemia (industrial and secularized Protestant), versus blue Moravia (agricultural and Catholic).

If anything, the impact of events at the end of the war was in the opposite direction: two districts with best results for Communists are Brezno in central Slovakia, whose mountains were the last stand of (mostly though not exclusively Communist) Slovak National Uprising, and Svidník in the northeast, the site of the Battle of Dukla Pass.
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Estrella
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« Reply #207 on: February 23, 2021, 05:42:58 PM »

Quote
Furthermore, as a part of the Kosice Government Programme of 1945 [1], only the parties that belonged to the National Front were allowed to run in the election.
...
[1] An agreement between the Communist Parties, the People's Party, the National Socialists, the Social Democrats and the national Slovak resistance parties (Democratic Party & Freedom Party) and the Labour Party, a social democratic party created in Slovakia by the right-wing social democrats who refused to merge with the Slovak Communist Party in 1945. The Programme called for the expropriation of German- and Hungarian-owned industries and lands, to be nationalised and for the nationalisation of the 'commanding heights' of the economy, among other measures.

On an irrelevant sidenote re the above: if you go to Košice today, you can find the amazingly named "Košice Government Programme Boulevard" and "Košice Government Programme Housing Estate", though both are usually referred to by the cryptic abbreviation KVP.
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Estrella
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« Reply #208 on: February 26, 2021, 12:56:55 PM »

Sulík says that Marek Krajčí, the Minister of Health, is responsible for the massive Covid death toll (last week has seen the highest number of deaths per capita in the world) and needs to resign. Matovič says no and says it's Sulík's fault because he opposed another round of mass testing. Sulík keeps insisting that Krajčí needs to go and says he's willing to replace him.

How the f*** is this government still together.
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Flyersfan232
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« Reply #209 on: February 27, 2021, 01:03:30 AM »

Sulík says that Marek Krajčí, the Minister of Health, is responsible for the massive Covid death toll (last week has seen the highest number of deaths per capita in the world) and needs to resign. Matovič says no and says it's Sulík's fault because he opposed another round of mass testing. Sulík keeps insisting that Krajčí needs to go and says he's willing to replace him.

How the f*** is this government still together.
You would think the sas would pull the trigger they got alot to gain from a snap election.
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Estrella
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« Reply #210 on: February 27, 2021, 01:09:56 AM »

Sulík says that Marek Krajčí, the Minister of Health, is responsible for the massive Covid death toll (last week has seen the highest number of deaths per capita in the world) and needs to resign. Matovič says no and says it's Sulík's fault because he opposed another round of mass testing. Sulík keeps insisting that Krajčí needs to go and says he's willing to replace him.

How the f*** is this government still together.
You would think the sas would pull the trigger they got alot to gain from a snap election.

Would look like a dick move in the middle of a pandemic, but once it's under control... yes, that's looking more likely by the day. I actually changed my mind from what I wrote last week: the chance of this cabinet staying together into 2022 is... not quite zero, but close.
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Estrella
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« Reply #211 on: March 01, 2021, 04:39:07 PM »

Some weeks ago, the cabinet had a debate on Matovič's proposal to use the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. They didn't agree to it due to concerns about the vaccine not being approved by European Medicines Agency and that seemed to be the end of it.

Today around noon, a story made rounds that some planespotters (or whatever you call the guys who buy a Flightradar24 subscription and then actually use it, so not me) spotted a Slovak Air Force plane flying from Moscow to Košice. Soon after, Matovič called a press conference at the Košice airport where he announced that yes, he bought Sputnik anyway.

I feel I need to repeat this: after having a proposal to axed by the cabinet and a board of experts, the PM said fxck you to both and secretly arranged to bring millions of doses of an unapproved vaccine to the country. Even some ministers seemed to be taken by surprise, which raises the question of where did he get the money for this? (the answer is most likely that Ministers of Health, Finance and Defence are all from his party, which... isn't a good sign for the coalition)
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Estrella
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« Reply #212 on: March 01, 2021, 04:42:04 PM »

Also,



Sooooo frustrating to see OĽANO stubbornly refuse to drop below 10%.
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Estrella
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« Reply #213 on: March 01, 2021, 05:13:50 PM »

Just for fun, here are some election results from my hometown. It's in the southwest, about an hour from Bratislava, about 15k people live here. Feel free to guess what town it is Wink

National Council, 2020
OĽANO 29%
MKÖ-MKS 12%
Smer-SD 11%
Sme rodina 9%
SaS 7%
PS-Spolu 7%
Most-Híd 6%
Za ľudí 6%
Kotleba-ĽSNS 4%

National Council, 2016
Most-Híd 22%
Smer-SD 16%
SMK-MKP 13%
SaS 12%
OĽANO 10%
Sme rodina 8%
Kotleba-ĽSNS 6%
SNS 5%
#Sieť 4%

National Council, 2012
Most-Híd 30%
Smer-SD 23%
SMK-MKP 13%
OĽANO 8%
SDKÚ-DS 7%
SaS 5%
KDH 3%
SNS 3%

I couldn't find older results on municipal level, so the numbers from here on aren't for the town itself, but the surrounding district.

National Council, 2010
Most-Híd 29%
Smer-SD 22%
SMK-MKP 14%
SDKÚ-DS 11%
SaS 9%
SNS 3%
KDH 3%

National Council, 2006
SMK-MKP 46%
Smer-SD 19%
SDKÚ-DS 12%
SNS 7%
ĽS-HDZS 6%
KDH 4%

National Council, 2002
SMK-MKP 43%
ĽS-HZDS 13%
Smer-TC 10%
SDKÚ-DS 10%
ANO 4%
KSS 4%
KDH 3%

National Council, 1998
SMK-MKP 36%
SDK 26%
ĽS-HZDS 19%
SDĽ 9%
SNS 6%
SOP 4%
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Estrella
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« Reply #214 on: March 01, 2021, 05:34:05 PM »

When I'm already at it: presidential elections! These results are again just for the town itself, and only for 2019 - can't find anything older than that.

2019 / First round
Zuzana Čaputová (PS) 50%
Maroš Šefčovič (Smer) 12%
Štefan Harabin (Vlasť) 11%
Eduard Chmerlár (Ind.) 9% [see note]
Béla Bugár (Most-Híd) 7%
Marian Kotleba (ĽSNS) 5%
František Mikloško (SKS) 3%
Milan Krajniak (Sme rodina) 2%
Others 1%
Turnout 48%

2019 / Second round
Zuzana Čaputová (PS) 73%
Maroš Šefčovič (Smer) 27%
Turnout 42%

Note: Eduard Chmelár is a university profesor and historian who has been on-an-off involved in politics since 1989. He's been a member of a million different lefty parties (among others the irrelevant Greens and the signature-forging scam 99%, currently leads Socialisti.sk). He seems like a nice guy, he's just a little crazy (weirdly pro-Russian, but non-Smer leftists always are, all five of them). He lives here, hence his weirdly high result - highest in the country, in fact.
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rob in cal
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« Reply #215 on: March 02, 2021, 02:24:46 AM »

Estrella, great map link of the 1946 elections.  A couple questions. It looks like a big reason for the Communist party doing so well in the Czech region was the vote in the former Sudetenland of new Czech settlers plus Czechs who already lived there pre war.  Had a new free election been held in 1948 were those massive numbers sustainable?  Any thoughts on what a free 1948 election would have looked like in general?

Also, I've often wondered what would have happened had the Communists plus Social Democrats not won a majority of seats in the 1946 elections.  If Czech National Socials, Czech Peoples Party and Slovak Democrats won the majority would it have been possible for Sramek or Zenkl to have become prime minister?
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« Reply #216 on: March 02, 2021, 03:19:54 AM »

Um, so, should this go into the Czech thread or Slovak thread?

Never mind, I tossed a coin and got heads, so Slovak thread it is.

Czechoslovak parliamentary election 1946

Map and writeup created by nanwe on DeviantArt.



Quote
The Czechoslovak election of 1946 was one of the only two free elections held in the post-WWII period in what would become Soviet-occupied Europe. Unlike the Hungarian 1946 elections, where the Soviet Army remained in place and therefore played a role in influencing the electoral results (not that it did much good for the Hungarian Communists), Czechoslovakia had no foreign military presence to influence the outcome.

However, the conditions of the vote were a bit authoritarian. In 1946, and following the Benes decrees, the over two million German-speakers and half a million Hungarian-speakers who had not proven their loyalty to Czechoslovakia in the 1935-1945 period were to be expelled from the country. Needless to say, they did not get a vote on that or a vote in the election for that matter. Only Czechs, Slovaks and other Slavs were allowed to vote. Furthermore, as a part of the Kosice Government Programme of 1945 [1], only the parties that belonged to the National Front were allowed to run in the election. Unlike later in the Communist era, the parties had strong differences of opinion on most topics. This meant that the Republican Party, the most important centre-right party of the interwar period was not allowed to compete, its voters divided between the People's Party (CSL) and the National Socialists (CSNS), the two most right-wing members of the coalition in the Czech lands.

The most important party in the National Front, especially after the election, was the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which paradoxically only run in the Czech portion of the country. The Communists controlled the Interior Ministry, indirectly the Defence one and the ministries that were in charge of the resettlement of ethnic Czech and Slovaks in the former German-speaking areas of the Sudetenland. This explains their strength in those parts of the country. Its Slovak cousin, the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) was very weak, however. Slovakia had suffered the most from the Soviet offensive and the Soviets did not behave nor were welcomed as liberators, as it did happen in the Czech parts of the country. That combined with the ability of the Slovak Democratic Party to rally anti-Communists and autonomist against them meant that the KSS was only useful as a tool for the Communists to win extra cabinet seats.

The largest of the non-communist parties was the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (CSNS), the party of Benes and Masaryk, a sort of Fabian-esque bourgeois socialist, socially liberal party that was also quite nationalistic. The CSNS had been one of the most important parties of the interwar period and they become the second most-voted party, although far away from the Communists. The CSNS was particularly strong in the cities, coming first in Brno and Ostrava and nearly coming first in Prague itself. The party was the go-to option for most right-wing Czechs in Bohemia, as the territory lacked the active Catholicism that was a fundamental factor in voting for the Czechoslovak People's Party.

The Czechoslovak People's Party (CSL), or the Populists was (and is) a Christian Democratic party (more in the Italian DC or French MRP vein than the German CDU) that benefitted from its strong roots in historically religious and rural Moravia, but also from an influx of former Republican voters. Because of this, it was the third largest party in parliament. The CSL's Slovak counterpart was the Freedom Party (SS), created in 1945 as a Christian democratic alternative to the Democratic Party that only achieved 3 seats, totally overshadowed by the Democrats.

The Democratic Party (DS) was the electoral juggernaut of Slovak politics at this time. Created by the merger of the non-communist members of the Slovak National Council, the Slovak anti-fascist resistance, the party essentially brought together the two most important political tendencies of interwar Slovakia, Christian Democratic autonomism-to-nationalism (Hlinka's Slovak People's Party) and agrarianism. The anti-communist nature of the party, combined with its calls for regional autonomy (as opposed to the KSS' preference for rule from Prague) won the party an unexpectedly high amount of votes, 64%. The party did, however, contain numerous politicians with ties to the Tiso regime, which was very effectively exploited by the Communist-controlled police and newspapers to weaken it little by little, applying salami tactics.

Next up was the Czechoslovak Social Democracy (CSSD). The Social Democrats had managed to be, during the interwar period, the most significant left-wing party in the country had been reduced to the status of being the smallest of the large parties of the National Front, with many of its voters departing for the Communists. To further that, the party was internally wrecked by divisions between the pro-Communist left-wing of the party (many times more radical than even the KSC) led by Zdenek Fierlinger [2], who served as Prime Minister between 1945 and until the election; and the party's anti-Communist right-wing, led by Vaclav Majer [3]. To top this all off, the party's Slovak branch, already weaker than the KSC in the interwar period, merged with the Communists during the war. Those few Social Democrats that refused to formed the Labour Party (SP), which would merge in 1947 with the Social Democrats to become the party's Slovak branch.

As it turned out, 1946 was the last free election in the country until 1990. The Communists came out as the strongest by far party in terms of seats and votes, although they fell short of their goal of obtaining a majority of both, at least in the Czech portion of the country. They came closer to that number than any party since the independence of the country in 1918. The period between 1946 and 1947 was relatively calm, as the Constituent National Assembly slowly drafted a new constitution, the economy was nationalised (by 1948, 60% of all industry was state-owned) and relations between the parties were good. However, the Communists which controlled directly or indirectly the country's most vital ministries were turning the police into a Communist party branch, and same with the state security service. The military was controlled by a Communist-friendly General who served as Minister of Defence, and the party was very powerful in the trade union movement.

By late 1947 and into 1948, as tensions in the coalition rose over the evident Communist attempts at appropriating the state security apparatus to their benefit, and the place of Czechoslovakia between the West and the Soviet Union combined with constitutional conflicts over the future status of Slovakia were breaking up the coalition.

At the same time, as it turned out, Communist sympathisers in the police forces had begun a fear campaign against non-Communist politicians, sending mail bombs and so on. On February 1948, the cabinet voted aˇfor firing from the police these 6 policemen, but the Communist minister (and premier) refused to carry out the order, causing a constitutional crisis. As a result, the non-Communist ministers resigned hoping that President Benes would ask Communist Premier Gottwald to resign and replace him with a non-Communist premier. The Communists, however, organised massive demonstrations and strikes that gathered over 2 million people. Combined with the Defence Minister's unwillingness to mobilise the Army against them - and the Communist sympathies of the police forces - forced Benes to allow Gottwald to form an all-Communist cabinet, essentially putting an end to the democratic experience and bringing forward a 41-year single-party regime.

[1] An agreement between the Communist Parties, the People's Party, the National Socialists, the Social Democrats and the national Slovak resistance parties (Democratic Party & Freedom Party) and the Labour Party, a social democratic party created in Slovakia by the right-wing social democrats who refused to merge with the Slovak Communist Party in 1945. The Programme called for the expropriation of German- and Hungarian-owned industries and lands, to be nationalised and for the nationalisation of the 'commanding heights' of the economy, among other measures.
[2] Known after 1948 as Doctor Quislinguer, Fierlinger had been the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Moscow during WWII and was rumoured to be an NKVD operative. He was amongst the strongest proponents of the merger between the Communists and the Social Democrats.
[3] By late 1947, the anti-communists had come to dominate the party, replacing Fierlinger as party leader with Bohumil Lausman, a centrist social democrat (in terms of neither being on the right nor the left wing of the party). The left-wing Social Democrats, Fierlinger included, however, remained in the cabinet. And would play an important role in guaranteeing the Communist success in the 1948 coup.


Some time ago, I've done such cartogram:

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Estrella
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« Reply #217 on: March 02, 2021, 12:46:10 PM »

Estrella, great map link of the 1946 elections.  A couple questions. It looks like a big reason for the Communist party doing so well in the Czech region was the vote in the former Sudetenland of new Czech settlers plus Czechs who already lived there pre war.  Had a new free election been held in 1948 were those massive numbers sustainable?  Any thoughts on what a free 1948 election would have looked like in general?

Also, I've often wondered what would have happened had the Communists plus Social Democrats not won a majority of seats in the 1946 elections.  If Czech National Socials, Czech Peoples Party and Slovak Democrats won the majority would it have been possible for Sramek or Zenkl to have become prime minister?

I'm not sure there would have been free 1948 elections and I don't think the left not winning a majority would have changed the outcome. If PCF was in government in France and PCI in Italy despite Soviets not liberating those countries, it's very unlikely that it wouldn't happen in Czechoslovakia. Once in government, Communists built influence within the army and police, plus well-organized paramilitary units (People's Militia) that had the power to scare other parties into caving to their demands. I don't think a different PM would change much either and even a cabinet without Communist participation would be unstable and fall apart at some point, likely leading to Gottwald's appointment (perhaps under Soviet rather than domestic pressure) and things ending up the same way they did IRL.

Bascially, I think geopolitics and Communists having too much grassroots support meant that what happened was inevitable. But it's still a really interesting question.
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« Reply #218 on: March 02, 2021, 12:49:30 PM »

This is the closest thing we have to a free 1948 election: map of Communist support in Czechia in 1992. Still strong in Sudetenland but doing markedly better in Moravia, though this is due to economic deprivation rather than nationalism.

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« Reply #219 on: March 02, 2021, 12:51:03 PM »

Anyway, I'm not sure if Matovič was really so stupid that he thought he could get away with the Sputnik stunt, but SaS and Za ľudí are meeting tonight to decide if they stay in coalition or quit.
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« Reply #220 on: March 03, 2021, 05:10:03 PM »

Anyway, I'm not sure if Matovič was really so stupid that he thought he could get away with the Sputnik stunt, but SaS and Za ľudí are meeting tonight to decide if they stay in coalition or quit.

So far they've agreed that they don't want early elections. It is presumed that they're currently discussing whether they want to force resignation of Minister of Health, a major cabinet reshuffle, or resignation of Matovič himself.

Matovič... well, instead of attempting to salvage his position, he created a diplomatic scandal after he joked that he paid for the Sputnik vaccine by giving Zakarpattia to Russia (Zakarpattia was a part of First Czechoslovak Republic and currently belongs to Ukraine)

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Estrella
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« Reply #221 on: March 10, 2021, 02:00:14 PM »

Leaders of parties in government are meeting tonight to try to somehow resolve their disputes. All I can say is that the "crisis" might end up as a massive, massive flop: within a week, we went from talking about an imminent early election, to replacing Matovič, to replacing some ministers, to replacing just Minister of Health, to... who knows what it's now.

Let's see if Sulík and Remišová have balls. Kollár doesn't, he said he'll stick with Matovič in return for, uhm, free respirators and a utility bill moratorium.

Anyway, while we wait for the outcome of the meeting, Matovič's Facebook is a riot:

- Matovič writes a sassy Facebook status calling on European Medicines Agency to work 24/7 to certify the Sputnik vaccine, personally calling out the agency's boss Christa Wirthumer-Hoche
- Zuzana Baťová, the director of Slovak Medicines Agency apologizes on behalf of Matovič
- He goes ballistic and publicly criticizes Baťová
- Then he publishes a message from Baťová's husband where he called him a "cowardly psychopathic piece of sh't"
- Now the husband claims he's going to sue him for "violation of secrecy of oral communications" (?)
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Estrella
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« Reply #222 on: March 11, 2021, 09:43:49 AM »

And it's over, lmao.

SaS, Za ľudí and Sme rodina are all staying, in return for resignation of Minister of Health, policy concessions (aforementioned free respirators etc) and Matovič not insulting them in public pretty please (not officially stated, but it's bloody obvious).

Let's see how long it lasts.
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Estrella
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« Reply #223 on: March 11, 2021, 10:22:40 AM »

dun
     dun
          dun
              another one bites the dust


Adding to the deluge of businessmen, high-ranking police officers, investigators, judges, lawyers, secret agents and politicians caught during the ongoing investigation into Smer-era corruption, Vladimír Pčolinský, the director of Slovak Information Service was arrested today. He is charged with taking bribes from oligarch Zoroslav Kollár (no relation to Boris) in return for stopping the wiretapping of his phones when he was being investigated for connections to mafia and bribery/intimidation of judges. The evidence comes from Pčolinský's deputy, arrested last year, who also framed the director of National Criminal Agency in a similiar case (taking bribes from oligarchs in return for stopping investigations).
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Estrella
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« Reply #224 on: March 14, 2021, 12:27:53 PM »

Some very interesting numbers from a poll about the share of people who consider said minister trustworthy:

1. Richard Sulík (SaS, Economy) 37%
2. Ján Budaj (OĽaNO, Environment) 36%
3. Branislav Gröhling (SaS, Education) 33%
4. Ivan Korčok (SaS, Foreign and European Affairs) 32%
...
15. Igor Matovič (OĽaNO, Prime Minister) 19%
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