Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[Mike88]

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

Thanks! It works, for me at least.

[Mike88]

So, on Saturday, Boris Kollár (who is, by the way, also the Speaker of National Council) had a rather serious car accident while being driven in his official limo. He's currently in hospital after a spine operation, but he should be okay. What's more interesting is that there was one other passenger in the car - a Playboy model and a finalist in Miss Slovakia. She later stated that Kollár was giving her a favor by taking her to a pharmacy to buy medication for her tetany.

Hmmm.

Reminds me of when a couple of year ago, Ján Richter, the then-Minister of Labour, had a car accident when, as he said, he was going to his granddaughter's baptism. The slight problem with that excuse was that in his suit pockets they found condoms, Viagra and thousands of euros in cash

Oh, but the story doesn't end there! During his stay in hospital, Dollar received multiple female, er, visitors who stayed overnight. They kept pestering the staff and asking for tea, which ended with one of them getting into a shouting match with a nurse who told her that her job is taking care of patients, not making tea for Speaker's mistress(es). The Karen then complained to the hospital director, who threatened the nurses with not paying them their bonuses, so the staff decided to complain to media. When the President found out about this, she called the director and got him to promise to pay the bonuses. Meanwhile, Kollár said that if his presence bothers someone, he'll ask the doctors to discharge him and go home.

Amazing story. And what a piece of work this guy is. 11 children from 10 different women? Wow. Plus, hilarious he's leader of a rightwing party that defends family values.

[Mike88]

...because the person leading it is even worse.

Reposting this here for why I fully expect OĽaNO to fall to third place in the next poll or two and why there are increasingly rumours of an early election sometime next year. It's not just because of this - I had high hopes of this government but I'm astonished at how quickly they managed to disappoint me. Matovič himself is the biggest problem - it's pretty clear that he can't run a whelk stall and the only thing that kept him from somehow managing to burn down the entire country were his ministers and his delusions being momentarily aligned with reality. There is also a theory (completely believable tbh given his childishness) that he discovered that he doesn't like being PM and wants to collapse the coalition, but lay the blame on someone else.

Rant over.   

Until now, Slovakia's PM Igor Matovič has been handling the situation pretty well. Generally low infection rates, reasonably strict measures and even a world first - successful mass testing of the whole population. I don't know what happened in the last month or so, but he seems to have become completely unhinged.

The GALAXY BRAIN of his came up with an idea. On December 7, we'll reopen schools, but with the following measures: before entering, children will gargle salt water (?!) and spit in a bucket (?!!) which will then be sealed and sent for testing. If the result is positive, all children who spat in the bucket (and their parents and siblings) will have to get tested and they will only be allowed to enter school premises with a negative result. The testing will be conducted by teachers (?!?!) because there isn't enough qualified personnel (yet somehow there was enough for the mass testing?).

The reaction from literally everyone (scared children, shocked parents, teachers on the brink of a heart attack, headteachers desperate after being screamed at by parents who threaten to sue them, public health experts, even people in his own cabinet, basically anyone with a functioning brain) was thus. Today, Matovič decided to do a 180° for the xth time in the past few weeks and his new plan is... f**k knows.

Christ alive, what a f****** cretin. Small wonder that he has a like -35 approval rating (and that was before this disaster!).

What?? Salt water?? Dear God, that isn't just stupid it's also... what the hell were you thinking? I thought I had my share today of stupid proposals about Covid from my government, but Slovakia, you win.

If there's a snap election in 2021, Pellegrini will back in, right? Or is his party still to be officialized?

[Mike88]

The Rusko story is just... lol. Hilarious. The poor guy was only using a shaman to put away "bad spirits".

Do you think snap elections are inevitable in 2021?

[Mike88]

Yikes! I mean, they didn't even bother to cheat things a little. Remarkable! (or not xD). But, seriously, the marketing team of Smer needs to be fired.

[Mike88]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1401997536391581700

So, for some reason Smer is making a comeback after the whole "logo fiasco"? Or is this polling company more favourable to them?

[Mike88]

So, snap elections after the budget or during 2023 are almost inevitable, right?

[Mike88]

I think this is the first time a poll puts PS tied with Smer:

Median poll, vote share %: (compared with the previous poll)

17.8% PS (+0.2)
17.8% Smer (-2.4)
10.2% REP (+0.2)
  9.4% Hlas (-0.6)
  8.2% SR (+2.4)
  7.3% KDH (+0.6)
  7.1% OĽaNO–KÚ–ZĽ (+0.9)
  6.7% SASKA (-0.6)
  5.3% SNS (nc)
  3.6% Democrats (-0.5)
  2.3% L'SNS (-0.1)
  4.4% Others (nc)

Poll conducted between 25 and 31 August 2023. Polled 1,002 voters.

[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.

[Mike88]

Let's hope the vote from Bratislava is very, very strong for PS.

[Mike88]

LETS F@CKING GO!!!!!!!!!!

OH FOR F@CKS SAKE

My thoughts exactly.

[Mike88]

The madlad did it:

"Pellegrini asked Fico for the post of prime minister"

"PS offered Pellegrini the post of prime minister."

Well, I suppose it was worth a shot on Pelle's part lol:

"Robert Fico, resolutely refused to give the leader of Hlas, Peter Pellegrini, the post of prime minister

Any updates on who Pellegrini will give the rose?

[Mike88]

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

[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.

[Mike88]

Election day has arrived.

How is turnout so far, Estrella?

[Mike88]

Nearly 91% in, and Korcok is already almost 2 pp ahead of Pellegrini.

[Mike88]

So both candidates outran the polls. This isn't going to be enough for Korčok though. Expecting Pelle to win the runoff 55-45-ish, perhaps a bit more narrow.

Not sure, the latest runoff polls are showing the gap closing, 51-53% for Pellegrini, 47-49% for Korčok. And Korčok is clearly exceeding expectations in the first round.

[Mike88]

96.83% counted and Korčok's lead over Pellegrini is already above 4%.

[Mike88]

If you put a gun to my head I'd guess that Pelle wins 52-48 or so, but it's far from straightforward.

Even though the 1st round turnout was the highest since 1999, it all seems that the 2nd round will be decided on who shows up to vote: If right-wing voters are disappointed and skip voting, or if moderate/progressive voters, encouraged by Korčok's strong showing, come out in heavier numbers.

[Mike88]

Ugh.