Following Saturday’s parliamentary election, Slovakia faces a badly fractured parliament, an almost impossible task of building a functional coalition government, the decimation of the country’s two Hungarian minority parties and, perhaps worst of all, the entry into parliament of an openly neo-Nazi movement, which makes Hungary’s Jobbik pale in comparison.
Slovakia’s current Prime Minister Robert Fico and his populist centre-left Smer (Direction) party won a plurality of votes (28.3%) in the country’s electoral system based entirely on proportional representation. But with this result, Mr. Fico will need at minimum two coalition partners to gain a majority of mandates in the 150-member Slovak National Council. Smer controlled 83 seats and a clear majority between 2012 and 2016, and is now reduced to just 49 seats. A close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially in the context of the refugee crisis, where both men oppose EU-wide quotas, Mr. Fico noted after the results became public that he expected at least 5% more in support, yet will still try to form a coalition, in order to keep “questionable experiments” from power.
Robert Fico with his ally, and political big brother, Viktor Orbán.
A centrist-liberal party called Freedom and Solidarity (SAS) found itself in second place with 12% of the vote and 21 seats, while the centre-right Ordinary People and Independent Personalities party (OĽaNO) came in third with 11% and 19 seats.
SAS and OĽaNO refuse to enter into a coalition agreement with Mr. Fico, but the two parties are also going to have a difficult time scraping together the majority needed to form their own centre-right coalition to boot the current prime minister from power.
Complicating the situation is the fact that two far-right parties have entered parliament. The Slovak National Party (SNS) garnered 8.7% in support and 15 seats. SNS was previously led by Jan Slota, known mostly for his virulently anti-Hungarian and racist positions. Mr. Slota once boasted about beating up an ethnic Hungarian. (“I am proud of giving that Hungarian a black eye.”)
But to make matters much worse is the shocking entry into parliament of the openly neo-Nazi People’s Party – Our Slovakia Party (LSNS), led by Marian Kotleba. Mr. Kotleba, who shaves his head and wears dark fatigues clearly reminiscent of uniforms worn by Slovak’s fascists during World War II, the Hlinka Guard, won 8.1% of the vote and 14 seats in parliament.
Marian Kotleba. Photo: Új Szó.
Mr. Kotleba, on the news of his stunning election coup, thanked God and the voters for his strong showing. He then indicated that he would “begin the battle for the liberation of Slovakia.” But from whom exactly is Mr. Kotleba hoping to liberate Slovakia? He had this to say on election night: “There are many people in this country who are fed up with corporate criminals and with the parasites who live in Roma settlements.”
Mr. Kotleba, who since 2013 has served as governor of Banska Bystrica, wants to remove Slovakia from the euro zone, as well as from NATO, which he has labelled a “terrorist organization.” In contrast to today’s Jobbik, during rallies, Mr. Kotleba’s supporters, en masse, Sieg Hiel in public, most of the party’s key activists are skinheads and they are entirely open in their use of symbols from Nazi Germany. Mr. Kotleba, since becoming governor, has toned some of this down, and has occasionally exchanged his Hlinka Guard uniform for a suit, but his politics remain just as closely aligned to Nazism as ever. Mr. Kotleba regularly greets his supporters at rallies by yelling: “Beautiful white day!” This refers to Mr. Kotleba’s desire to create a racially white Slovakia.
“We call for a pure white and Union-free Slovakia,” declared Mr. Kotleba in late 2015. Also last year, the party congratulated men who murdered three members of a local Roma community in southern Slovakia. “They were right to take matters into their own hands,” explained Mr. Kotleba’s party.
It is the refugee crisis, in particular–a topic that Prime Minister Fico also tried to use in a wholly populist manner–which propelled Mr. Kotleba’s party far over the 5% threshold required for representation in parliament.
Two Hungarian minority parties also contested the election, and one managed to make it across the threshold, although with a diminished share of the vote, compared to the 2012 elections. Béla Bugár’s centre-right Híd (Bridge) party, which calls for improved minority rights and peaceful co-existence between Hungarian populations in the south and the Slovak majority, won just 6.5% of the vote and 11 seats in parliament. In contrast, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s preferred group, the Party of the Hungarian Community (Magyar Közösség Pártja – MKP) won just 4.04%, and will once again be shut out of parliament in Bratislava.
Béla Bugár. Photo: TASR.
The two Hungarian parties faired poorly, because voter turn-out was much higher nationally (close to 60%), than it was in the heavily Hungarian regions of southern Slovakia.
The almost impossible task of forming a government is next. Richard Sulík, the leader of the second largest party in parliament, the centrist SaS, is willing to form a coalition with the far-right, traditionally anti-Hungarian SNS party, but he would have to look for other partners as well, in order to secure a majority. Mr. Sulík suggested the unimaginable, namely that the Hungarian Híd party may have to agree to join the coalition as well, sitting alongside the xenophobes in SNS, who previously dreamed, in public, of wiping Hungary off the map. Híd’s leader, Béla Bugár, however, struck a laconic tone. Mr. Bugár noted that Slovakia’s new government, whatever its composition, is “not likely to strengthen the rule of law and European values” in the country.
It is also unimaginable that Híd would agree to bolster Prime Minister Fico’s government, should he attempt to form a coalition, considering that Mr. Bugár referred to Slovakia under Smer as “a failed legal state.” Mr. Bugár’s platform is based on three pillars, namely: minority language rights, anti-corruption and improvements in health care.
Two smaller parties, namely the Christian Democratic #SIEŤ (Network) party (5.6%) and an anti-migrant, anti-foreigner party called We Are a Family (Sme Rodina) also passed the hurdle, with 6.6%. All in all, eight parties will be represented in parliament and a majority for any side seems entirely elusive.
Slovakia is likely heading towards a period of political instability.
