Slovakia: Back on Track?

Election results in Slovakia provide a glimmer of hope

In last Sunday’s general election Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s SMER-Social Democracy Party (SMER) clearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Despite winning the general election with a third of the votes and more than double that of his nearest rival, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party (SDKU-DS) of former Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, Fico and his coalition partners together failed to secure enough seats to form a new government.

Although it is quite clear that power will now be in the hands of a broad coalition of center-right parties, Fico nevertheless had been asked to try and form the next government. However, most realise that this is merely a formality, and that Fico’s attempt is unlikely to succeed.

Within a regional context, the outcome of the Slovak election reinforces a general shift to the right throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Ironically, this shift is apparent even when the left ends up winning an election. For instance, last Sunday’s results reflect the recent voting in the Czech Republic in which the left also won the election, but the centre-right ended up forming the new government.

The success of the center-right in Slovakia

The center-right’s success is due to two factors. First and foremost was the poor showing of Fico’s coalition partners. The Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (LS-HZDS) failed to cross the 5-percent parliament threshold while Jan Slota’s extremist Slovak National Party (SNS) barely crossed the barrier. In conjunction with this, the emergence of two new parties on the right, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Most-Hid (Bridge), the latter representing the ethnic Hungarian minority, helped to further erode Fico’s power base. A low voter turnout of less than 59 percent also seemed to have an effect.

The four center-right parties that are now expected to form the new government -- the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU-DS), the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Most-Hid (Bridge) -- won’t necessarily have an easy time, however. Together they will have a majority of 79 votes in the 150-seat Slovak parliament. Contentious issues, however, especially those surrounding the Hungarian minority, could end up putting the coalition under stress and threaten to break the coalition apart.

At this point, it is premature to assume that the success of the center-right in Slovakia was a clear signal that voters had rejected Fico and his policies. Indeed, Fico’s SMER actually won more seats in this year’s election than in 2006. Rather, the vote was an indication that people have had enough of extremist politics. This is obvious from the poor showing of the SNS. Many felt that the SNS would do better, gaining as much as fifteen percent of the vote. If this would have been the case, then Fico would have had an easier time to form a new government.

Dilemma for the Hungarian government

This rejection of extremist politics holds true for the other side as well. The opposition Hungarian Coalition Party (MKP), one of the two parties representing the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, failed to cross the 5 percent parliamentary barrier. The MKP, which has been seen as provocative by some, including those within the Hungarian minority, was heavily supported by the Hungarian government. In fact, Budapest had totally ignored the Most-Hid party of Bela Bugar. Although the Hungarian government welcomed the news that a center-right government will be formed in Bratislava, the fact that the Most-Hid made it to parliament and the MKP didn’t was no doubt a large disappointment.

Hungarian nationalists within both Hungary and Slovakia regard Bugar and his party as traitors of sorts. They point to the fact that half of those within the party who were elected to parliament aren’t even Hungarian but Slovak. Yet this is precisely the objective of the Most-Hid: their intended purpose is to “bridge” (hence the party’s name Bridge) the divide between Slovaks and Hungarians. According to Bugar, it’s only through such dialogue that the Hungarian minority can ascertain their rights.

For the Hungarian government, however, the success of the Most-Hid has led to a dilemma. The tense relations between the two countries had fed the populist rhetoric of Viktor Orban and his government in Budapest. With this source of tension possibly on the wane, Orban will have to look elsewhere for issues with which to bolster his right-wing credentials.

A path toward calmer waters

If Slovakia is indeed on the threshold of change, then this isn’t the first time that the country has opted for political realignment. Prior to the country’s accession to the EU, voters realised that Slovakia only had future within Europe if the extreme nationalist Vladimir Meciar was removed from power. On the other hand, as Jan Slota’s SNS subsequently showed, extremist elements are never that far away and are merely waiting in the wings for their chance to reappear. The new government in Bratislava would do best to be aware of this, and chart a path toward calmer waters. After all, this is what people had voted for.