Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)

Kálmán Petőcz: National Populism and Electoral Behaviour

National Populism and Electoral Behaviour

Table 5 illustrates obvious differences between western and eastern constituencies. In the west, one may detect a significant discrepancy between both sets of figures that may probably be attributed to several factors. One of the most important is that election results of SMK-MKP in some districts of West Slovakia significantly (i.e. by three to nine percent) exceeded ethnic Hungarians’ overall share on the given constituency’s population. A plausible explanation is that voter participation among ethnic Hungarians was slightly higher than among Slovaks. This factor was the most perceptible in Dunajská Streda and Štúrovo constituencies where voter participation was the highest of all Slovak constituencies not only in the 2006 parliamentary elections but also in the 2009 presidential elections.22 Another important factor might have been that SMK-MKP was supported by two groups of Slovak voters: first, citizens who officially declare Slovak nationality but internally perceive themselves as Hungarians, either because Hungarian is their mother tongue or because they have a Hungarian ethnic identity;21 second, so-called ‘pure’ Slovak voters who preferred SMK-MKP based on their civic values that disregarded ethnic criteria.24

In eastern constituencies, the discrepancy between both sets of figures is not as obvious. Also, the differences between election results posted by SMK-MKP and the official share of ethnic Hungarian voters are less conspicuous than in the west. In Rimavská Sobota and Trebišov districts, election results of SMK-MKP were in fact lower than ethnic Hungarians’ share on these districts’ respective populations. One of plausible explanations is that a significant share of numerous local Roma who otherwise declare Hungarian ethnic nationality in population censuses voted for Slovak parties.

Even though we are unable to define exact voting preferences of Slovak voters in the 2006 elections (hence the intervals), we may draw relatively unambiguous conclusions regarding stability or changeability of their voting preferences between 2006 and 2009. The difference between nationwide election results posted by President Gašparovič in 2009 (55.53%) and the SMER - SNS - HZDS bloc in 2006 (49.66%) is approximately 6%, which almost exactly matches the combined election results of seven small parties that failed to qualify to parliament in 2006 but are closer to the ruling coalition than the opposition in terms of ideological and political background.25 This justifies a conclusion that the overall voter support for the national-populist bloc (i.e. the bloc of national-socialist forces) remained unchanged in three years.26 Table 5 even suggests that overall voting preferences of ruling parties grew slightly stronger in the stripe of border districts to the east of the town of Šahy. This is true particularly of Michalovce and Trebišov districts but also of Košice-area, Revúca, Rimavská Sobota and Velký Krtíš districts. All these

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