Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[crals]

Why is OLANO still doing relatively well? They seem like an absolute disaster from what I read in this thread.

[warandwar]

Why is OLANO still doing relatively well? They seem like an absolute disaster from what I read in this thread.

There are a lot of ordinary people and independent personalities in Slovakia

[Mike88]

I know that polling almost everywhere nowadays has "omelets in their suits", but PS has seen a real surge in the last few days. Let's hope it continues until Saturday.

[Estrella]

If the Hungarian Alliance is to somehow make it in, for whom are they a more likely partner?

Before 2016 it would be unthinkable for a Hungarian party to enter a coalition with Smer, but they've Fidesized to the point that both they and Smer might prefer it. But really they'll go with whoever offers them more €€€.

Why is OLANO still doing relatively well? They seem like an absolute disaster from what I read in this thread.

His turbopopulist campaign about CORRUPTION MAFIA CRIMINALS MAFIA THIEVES MAFIA FICO MAFIA etc still has some appeal, largely because he's right on that issue if nothing else. He's also an okay option for anti-Smer populists – I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting old Sme rodina voters who don't want to vote for an (alleged) wifemistress-beater (and those polls were taken before Zoroslav's er, intervention).

I know that polling almost everywhere nowadays has "omelets in their suits", but PS has seen a real surge in the last few days. Let's hope it continues until Saturday.

I think I've seen this film before...



And for the same reason: "oh sh/t Fico's going to win this"

[PSOL]

Where did the Dobra Vol’ba vote go?

[MRCVzla]

Where did the Dobra Vol’ba vote go?

There are running with Hlas, i counted 5 of their politicians within Top 25 (5th, 7th, 9th, 23rd and 25th), so some of them will may get elected.

[Estrella]

Where did the Dobra Vol’ba vote go?

Yeah, what MRCVzla said. By the way, I have some good news for you and no one else about Slovak leftists, all five of them.

Ľuboš Blaha, deputy leader of Smer and no. 3 on the list: "Friends, Slovaks, allow me to greet you with a traditional left-wing greeting and make the right-wing Bratislavans mad: Honour work, comrades! Our flag is not blue and yellow, but white, blue and red! White, blue and red! White, blue and red!"

"Honour work!" (Česť práci!) was the official greeting of Communist nomenklatura and anyone else using it was widely mocked as a careerist bootlicker even during the dictatorship, never mind now. Blaha is probably the only person in that room who didn't think it was a joke, and it's a f/cking Smer meeting with an average age somewhere north of 60.

Meanwhile the founder of Socialisti.sk Eduard Chmelár wrote an article for the far-right magazine Extra Plus where he asks if "a Slovak Maidan is being prepared", accuses pretty much every non-Smer, non-far-right political figure of "producing the most lies since the times of Joseph Goebbels" and says that a Smer victory is not going to be accepted by the "irrational" West. The Communist Party has basically no economic or social proposals on their website, but they do have plenty of articles about "liberals destroying our history and culture" by removing memorials to Soviet generals and by promoting same-sex marriage because "Western liberal democracy fights agains the Christian religion".

[Logical]

ALDE leader attacking another ALDE party. lols
https://twitter.com/AndrejBabis/status/1707462683065286984

[YL]

More evidence that ALDE/Renew Europe really isn't a coherent grouping.

[Estrella]

ALDE leader attacking another ALDE party. lols
https://twitter.com/AndrejBabis/status/1707462683065286984

The funniest thing for me isn't actually the content. I knew that Andrej Babiš, a Bratislava native, speaks Czech with a Slovak accent, but TIL that he also speaks Slovak with a Czech accent.

Babiš isn't even the first Slovak politician in Prague with this problem. Communist dictator Gustáv Husák was famous for mixing Czech and Slovak all the time, which sometimes led to coming up with nonsense that became a catchphrase: To je ale kýbel! ("What a bucket!") or apříl (a nonsense Czech-sounding word according to the stereotype that more Ř = more Czech, the actual Czech word for the month of April is duben). When he took office there was some controversy about which language his New Year's speech should be in, and he ended up making it Czech in even years and Slovak in odd years.

[RGM2609]

Good luck today, hopefully, the right side prevails in what is probably the starkest ideological and cultural battle I've seen in a long time. And thanks for keeping us updated throughout the entire madness!

[Storr]

Voting has started as of four minutes ago at 7am Central European Time. It ends at 10pm CET (4pm Eastern; 1pm Pacific). If only the US had such voting hours...

[Estrella]

I thought about making some kind of showcase of each party's campaign stuff, but midway through writing it I realized that no-one decides based on posters or ads or whatever anyway. Instead here's Part the Second:

In this video, Zoroslav Kollár, as acerbic and as rambling as ever, focuses on the former director of Slovak Information Service Vladimír Pčolinský, deposed and arrested in 2021 for a serious corruption scandal and arrested again this August as a part of Operation Denouement (explained earlier in this thread). Vladimír Pčolinský, by the way, has a brother, Peter Pčolinský, who is a MP for Sme rodina and co-founder of the party along with Boris Kollár. Zoroslav then plays a four-minute recording of a profanity-laden conversation delivered to him by "an unknown honorable citizen", featuring Vladimír Pčolinský. Besides such gems as "So I told him, Boris, you're wrecked, f/ck off and we'll meet when you're sober", it contains discussions about pentiti and details of investigations of some prominent corruption cases. Pčolinský confirmed the authenticity of the recording and says he thinks he knows who made it. Kollár ends the video with a bunch of accusations about Pčolinský panicking when his friends were arrested and turned informer, which led him to illegally use the SIS to protect or blackmail other people.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I thought about making some kind of showcase of each party's campaign stuff, but midway through writing it I realized that no-one decides based on posters or ads or whatever anyway. Instead here's Part the Second:

Given what you’ve shown of past Slovak campaigns (Smer’s bare ass cheek posters, Mečiar deciding he needs celeb endorsements and choosing Claudia Schiffer and Gerard Depardieu, absurd campaign jingles and so much more) I’d certainly be interested in any crazy campaign advertising the politicians have got up to this time.

[RGM2609]

Should I even ask how you and people around you voted lmao? But if you've noticed any trends IRL I think that would be interesting!

[jaichind]

Any info on when polls close and links to results ?

[Estrella]

Should I even ask how you and people around you voted lmao? But if you've noticed any trends IRL I think that would be interesting!

I voted PS (obviously lol), as did my dad. Mom thought about PS too but in the end went for Hlas because she thinks they have experienced people on the list and not just various activists, cultural workers etc (tbh she's got a point). Two family acquaintaces went for Hlas too, an elderly neighbour for Alliance, a kinda #woke friend for PS and a friend who goes to law school said he's unsure but pretty much all of his class suports SaS (of course). A couple of friends put some PS stuff on their Instagram stories, a cousin who is also kinda #woke shared a whole spiel about choosing from PS, SaS ("if you're more individualist") and Dems ("if you're more conservative") and another cousin shared a speech of Uhrík from Republika. One thing they all have in common is that they (including Hlas and Republika supporters) think Fico is a criminal, but that's true for almost everyone under 60.

[Estrella]

Any info on when polls close and links to results ?

Officially 22:00 CET, but every polling station must be open for fifteen hours and if something goes wrong and the voting is interrupted (last time a voter and a poll worker died, now it was thankfully just someone fainting), it has to stay open for longer. Exit polls and results can only be published after every polling station has closed. In 2020 it was at 23:00 and today it's going to be at 22:40 at the earliest.

SME usually has the best results page: https://volby.sme.sk/parlamentne-volby/2023/vysledky
Another good one from Denník N, also with commentary: https://dennikn.sk/volby/vysledky/

In case anyone wants to watch:
RTVS (public TV, probably best coverage) https://www.rtvs.sk/televizia/live-1
TA3 (news) https://www.ta3.com/live
JOJ https://live.joj.sk/
ČT24 (Czech public TV, had really good coverage last time) https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/domaci/3168177-zive-vysilani-ct24

[Germany1994]

Any news about turnout so far??

[Estrella]

Any news about turnout so far??

Probably not much lower than in 2020, other than that hard to say.

Btw, TV Markíza said that they'll present a "blind" exit poll (just numbers without party names) at 22:00 anyway to get around the moratorium, so we'll have some idea of the result before waiting for the stragglers to finish.

[MRCVzla]

Polls overall in Slovakia has been closed, but the moratorium on publishing exit polls has been postponed 45 minutes after the closing of voting stations (22:45 CET) due to two particular events, a member of the electoral commission of a voting center in Bratislava has had a medical emergency delaying the closing of the voting for 40 minutes, also the delay is due to the death of a 78-year-old voter in Považská Bystrica, delaying the closing for 45 minutes, in addition to small incidents mostly related to lack of ballots, or attempts to tear the electoral moratorium, but the day has generally been described as peaceful.

Exit polls are expected from the private network TV Markíza/Focus (as Estrella mentioned) and the public broadcaster RTVS/Median. Once the results will be known, also we figure out how was the turnout, probably high or similar to February 2020 (65.8%)

[DavidB.]

What an anticlimax watching the livestream. They just keep talking. No countdown, no jingle, no suspense. Sad!

[Keep Calm and ...]

...

Exit polls are expected from the private network TV Markíza/Focus (as Estrella mentioned) and the public broadcaster RTVS/Median. Once the results will be known, also we figure out how was the turnout, probably high or similar to February 2020 (65.8%)

Focus/Markiza TV with a blank exit poll
https://twitter.com/SlovakiaElects/status/1708211631086244049

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

...

Exit polls are expected from the private network TV Markíza/Focus (as Estrella mentioned) and the public broadcaster RTVS/Median. Once the results will be known, also we figure out how was the turnout, probably high or similar to February 2020 (65.8%)

Focus/Markiza TV with a blank exit poll
https://twitter.com/SlovakiaElects/status/1708211631086244049

Please let party one be PS...

[DavidB.]

So going to guess the correct order is PS, Smer, Hlas, Olano, Rep, SaS and KDH above the threshold, and SR and SNS just below.

PS-Hlas-Olano-KDH, perhaps?