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 Mečiar in 1999 and Ivan Gašparovič in 2009 in particular districts of southern Slovakia tends to grow from west to east. In Revúca, Košice-area and Trebišov districts, the difference exceeded 35%. In western districts, the difference never exceeded 20% and usually fluctuated around 15%. As one would think, the smallest gaps were recorded in Nitra and Nové Zámky constituencies. Like in the case of parliamentary elections in 2006, these figures indicate that national populism as a voter mobilization strategy works particularly in south-western Slovakia while populism accentuating social issues stands a better chance to be effective in south-eastern districts. The explanation seems obvious: the socio-economic situation of citizens inhabiting western Slovak districts has always been and continues to be significantly better than that of citizens inhabiting eastern Slovak districts. Since Rudolf Schuster opted for social populism in his 1999 campaign, we venture to draw a conclusion that Vladimír Mečiar was supported primarily by hardcore voters from , the national-populist camp. Table 6 also reveals similar patterns of Slovak voters’ electoral behaviour in presidential elections of 1999 and 2009. Both Vladimír Mečiar in 1999 and Ivan Gašparovič in 2009 recorded the worst election results in three constituencies that are relatively homogeneously populated by ethnic Hungarians (i.e. Dunajská Streda, Komárno and Štúrovo) where their share of the popular vote among Slovak voters barely exceeded 30% and 40%, respectively. On the other hand, in districts located along the actual Slovak- Hungarian ethnic border, both Vladimír Mečiar and Ivan Gašparovič recorded much better results among Slovak voters. When running against Rudolf Schuster in 1999, Vladimír Mečiar recorded his worst results among Slovak voters in the following south-eastern districts: Košice-area, Rimavská Sobota, Rožňava and Trebišov. In the case of Košice-area, this could be largely attributed to the fact that Schuster had long been active there on the local level and held various important posts including that of Košice mayor. As far as the remaining three districts go, it was little surprise that they had the highest share of ethnic Hungarians to the east of Šahy. On the first glimpse, this pattern seems to corroborate the hypothesis that on truly ethnically mixed territory, Slovaks and ethnic Hungarians coexist more peacefully and tend to elect candidates or parties whose overall policy is generally more accommodating with respect to the Hungarian minority and its members. On the other hand, though, voter support for candidates of nationalsocialist (i.e. national-populist) bloc in south-eastern Slovakia showed an immense increase in 2009 compared to 1999. One of plausible explanati121
