Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

are there a significant number of Hlas voters who would abandon the party over this? Or is Fico more approved of among them?

[Estrella]

Estrella, what do you think will happen to the ragtag group of fascists, also known as the SNS, now? Will they get posts in government or even stick together?

They’re pretty much certain to fall apart at some point. About being in government, nobody knows yet. I’m also curious who (if anybody) will be the SNS ministers.

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

Haha, I wish, but they weren’t kicked out in 2016 when basically the same coalition was formed (Smer+SNS+spineless moderate doormats) and if it didn’t happen then…

are there a significant number of Hlas voters who would abandon the party over this? Or is Fico more approved of among them?

That’s the big question. Hlas voters probably prefer a government with Smer to one with PS, but we’ll see how they take it when Fico comes back in power and starts doing Fico things. Really, the problem for Hlas is that if they want to be a Smer without Fico and then put Fico back in power anyway, there’s no reason for them to exist.

[RGM2609]

Maybe, as Storr suggested, Pellegrini wants to be President and doesn't particularly care what will happen to his party afterward. I see no reason why most of those people can't leave Smer-2 and go back to Smer. 

[Mike88]

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

Haha, I wish, but they weren’t kicked out in 2016 when basically the same coalition was formed (Smer+SNS+spineless moderate doormats) and if it didn’t happen then…

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

Probably not, they need their seats in next year EP election, and they already had chance for that in the Fico I cabinet.

I asked because Costa "wrote" a letter to the PES leadeship saying that if Fico allied himself with a far-right party, he needs to be expelled from the European Socialists. Of course, this could be just propaganda for internal market, but still, having a PES member supportive of Russia and allied with a far-right party, doesn't bode well for PES when in 8 months there are European elections.

[Estrella]

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

Haha, I wish, but they weren’t kicked out in 2016 when basically the same coalition was formed (Smer+SNS+spineless moderate doormats) and if it didn’t happen then…

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

Probably not, they need their seats in next year EP election, and they already had chance for that in the Fico I cabinet.

I asked because Costa "wrote" a letter to the PES leadeship saying that if Fico allied himself with a far-right party, he needs to be expelled from the European Socialists. Of course, this could be just propaganda for internal market, but still, having a PES member supportive of Russia and allied with a far-right party, doesn't bode well for PES when in 8 months there are European elections.

Costa is too good for PES

[Estrella]

Smer, Hlas and SNS signed a "memorandum of understaning", a sort of draft coalition agreement that doesn't actually say anything but does outline how many ministries each party will get: Smer the PM and 6 ministers, Hlas the Speaker and 7 ministers, SNS 3 ministers, including one new ministry that will be created early next year. The exact ministries aren't named, but it's been leaked that Smer gets Finance, Justice, Defense, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs and possibly Transport. As a consolation prize for not getting Pelle into the PM's office, Hlas gets one more ministry than Smer despite having 15 MPs and 8% less (lol): Interior, Economy, Education, Health, Labour, Investments and "European Funds and Plan of Renewal". SNS gets Environment, Culture and a possible new Ministry of Tourism and Sport.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Haha, Taraba of Culture that is funny

[Estrella]

Haha, Taraba of Culture that is funny

And Huliak in Environment I expect the first cabinet meeting to turn into a shouting match about whether it's more important to ban pride flags or shoot every bear in the country.

[DavidB.]

Smer, Hlas and SNS signed a "memorandum of understaning", a sort of draft coalition agreement that doesn't actually say anything but does outline how many ministries each party will get

Love the opportunism of this. Does this indicate that parties will have total control over their own portfolios, which they simply have "exchanged", and that there won't be many compromises? How does this usually go in Slovakia?

[RGM2609]

I think the party the Minister is from will have priority over corruption schemes in the respective fields.

[Storr]

This means that Smer will be kicked out from the European Socialists, right?

There it is: The Party of European Socialists has suspended Smer and Hlas membership.

"Peter Pellegrini responded to this threat by saying that, unlike Smer, they have an advantage, since the Socialists cannot fire them, since they are not yet full members. Fico said in the video that he will not change his rhetoric towards Ukraine, even if it costs him membership."

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Slovakia now has the greatest current world leader.

[Estrella]

Smer, Hlas and SNS signed a "memorandum of understaning", a sort of draft coalition agreement that doesn't actually say anything but does outline how many ministries each party will get

Love the opportunism of this. Does this indicate that parties will have total control over their own portfolios, which they simply have "exchanged", and that there won't be many compromises? How does this usually go in Slovakia?

These parties don't disagree on that much (nor did OĽANO-SR-SaS-ZĽ; their cabinets fell apart because of personal issues, not policy ones), so total control over their portfolio doesn't mean the same thing as with, say, the VVD-PvdA coalition, but each party got the portfolios they care about the most. Smer as power-hungry Putinists got the most powerful positions and foreign affairs, Hlas as shady but seemingly genuine socdems got the economic and social portfolios, SNS as angry reactionaries got culture and MUH BEARS.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

SNS as angry reactionaries got culture and MUH BEARS.

Same energy

[Estrella]

Certain people like to criticize social democratic parties for abandoning the working class when they're in government and only caring about abstract social issues at the expense of economics. This is certainly true for some parties, such as Smer.

What didn't fit into the press conference XIII - about pregnant men, fruit flies and diplomatic carp

Helpfully, the bit from 0:20 to 6:30 with Fico's message to PES has English subtitles.

Some notes:
- "people are dying in Slovak prisons" is a reference to the suicide in prison of a former Police President, a Smer appointee who tried to sabotage the investigation into the murder of Ján Kuciak
- "we have never acted negatively against them", sure, except that time they put a ban on same-sex marriage in the constitution, defunded LGBT rights organizations, voted to ban the display of pride flag on public buildings, called adoptions by same-sex couples "perverted" etc etc...
- "the roots of the war lie in 2014, when Ukrainian fascists murdered civillians of Russian nationality", fxcking lol

[RGM2609]

681.017 people voted for this. It is beyond me how anyone would deem it appropriate to be led by such a creature.

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

Slovakia now has the greatest current world leader.

[Estrella]

lmao what

https://twitter.com/slovakiaelects/status/1713253338752721141

[RGM2609]

They must really hate being in Parliament lmao. Now that they got back in despite their best efforts, they want to make sure next time they will be out for good.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Haha, Taraba of Culture that is funny

And Huliak in Environment I expect the first cabinet meeting to turn into a shouting match about whether it's more important to ban pride flags or shoot every bear in the country.

Tabak wants to be state secretary in the Ministry of Sport and Transportation

[RGM2609]

Wasn't Tabak in OLANO, starting fights with the other SaS lady? Or am I confused?

[Estrella]

Wasn't Tabak in OLANO, starting fights with the other SaS lady? Or am I confused?

Yep. She's a former tennis player, elected in 2020 for OĽANO along with two other tennis players. She became notable for being the only person in the party more insane than Matovič, voted against allowing the prosecution of Fico and was expelled from the party literally an hour later, like you said started a fight with Jana Bittó Cigániková, joined Sme rodina, left Sme rodina after the government agreet to give old Slovak fighter jets to Ukraine, ran for mayor of a Bratislava borough promising free tennis lessons for kids if she wins, joined SNS, said she's going to run in the parliamentary election, changed her mind and now says she wants to run for European Parliament next year.

Besides all that, she's basically a walking meme: she burst a bag of confetti in Parliament to celebrate the passing of the budget, famously can segue from any topic to "I played at Wimbledon twice!" and a few weeks ago had a hilarious meltdown after seeing a theatre poster with Ukrainian and Pride flags, so much so that she joined the protest of the "patriots" from Matica slovenská. Matica slovenská, by the way, is supposed to be a cultural and educational civil society organization (back in primary school we sometimes went to their local club for lectures about drugs, mental health and such), but it's been dying for a long time and it tells you everything you need to know about them that their first notable "cultural" activity in years was a protest against a fxcking theatre poster.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Career high in Singles of 246, never played in a Slam as an adult, only in Juniors.

[Estrella]

The coalition agreement was signed today and it's looking like this cabinet has a much better chance of not going down in flames than the previous two. The agreement is actually written like a proper legal document, full of drawn-out legalese taking up most of the content ("doc. JUDr. Robert Fico CSc., chairman, authorised to act on behalf of Direction - Social Democracy, headquartered at 25 Súmračná, 821 02 Bratislava, inscribed in Registry of Political Parties under the number..."), a detailed breakdown of procedures for resolving disputes ("if an immediate solution is not reached, the coalition council will create a working group where all coalition parties are equally represented") and other such nuts and bolts ("the coalition council meets two days before the start of every session of the National Council, but at least once a month, generally on Mondays unless the coalition council decides otherwise"). Interestingly, they also created "regional coalition councils" and "district coalition councils", made up of representatives of regional/district branches of Smer, Hlas and SNS who will meet every few months to discuss local issues.

The rest of the document is taken up by a breakdown of who gets what minister, state secretary and committee chairmanship. All policy content takes up, I shxt you not, a page and a half of the fifteen page document — and most of that are just meaningless platitudes. Here's the only sorta relevant bit:

The coalition parties carry the legacy and traditions of preservation of Slovak statehood, of membership of Slovakia in supranational and security structures such as European Union and North Atlantic Alliance because they are aware of the importance of European integration and international cooperation for security of citizens of Slovak Republic, which is why the coalition parties guarantee the foreign policy orientation of Slovakia in European Union, North Atlantic Alliance and other significant international organizations while fully respecting the nation state interests and sovereignty of Slovak Republic and strengthening healthy patriotism.

(who the fxck wrote this and have they ever heard of sentence breaks)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

(who the fxck wrote this and have they ever heard of sentence breaks)

Must’ve got their degree like Matovic and Kollar did lol.