Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Peter Učen: Approaching National Populism
Peter Učeň the shared ‘staple’, national-populist moment was capable of materialising in some polities also in the form of alliances of various ‘unorthodox’ parties. Political coalition of the populist radical right with national populists took place in the 1990s in Romania (PRM and PDSR) and Serbia (SRS and SPS). In Slovakia, in addition to stable cooperation of the HZDS and SNS, also the radical left element was involved in the form of the Slovak Workers’ Association (ZRS). SIovaI< NatíonaI PopulisT Moment By way of example, let’s illustrate our views of the post-communist national populism on the case of Slovakia. The reason for which in the aftermath of the regime change any successful opposition politics in Slovakia had to be based on a message addressing social impact of economic changes brought up by the transitions and the widespread feeling among the Slovaks that the institutional/constitutional arrangement of the Czechoslovak Federation was not fair, were obvious. Slovak political elite were divided on how to response to those perceptions. While its ‘federalist’ and ‘civic liberal’ part held it was necessary to withstand the bad weather by consistently sticking to the line of economic liberalisation and preserving existing constitutional arrangements, a national(ist) opposition rose within their ranks. In general, Slovak opposition outside of the VPN reacted both to social deprivation (SDL) and to a perceived unfairness of the form of the state (SNS, KDH). But it was Vladimír Mečiar, heading the opposition within the (nominally) civic liberal camp, who mixed the ‘remedy’ of national populism for all Slovak ails. First, he successfully combined the social and the national aspects of the Slovaks’ disillusionment with the new order in his (party’s) appeal to the people making the national interpret the social. Second, he added a strong populist ingredient to the movement by both defining the people (members of the Slovak nation affected by the post-transition deprivations) and pointing out the harmful elite which, ill-serving or betraying the people was to be blamed for those deprivations. Finally, he provided a suggestion for a solution (a “bearable transition”) appealing to a noteworthy number of Slovaks, that meant taking (some) economic and political power to ‘Slovak hands’, those hands being the hands of people that understood the needs and would not fail the people - Vladimír Mečiar himself and his Movement for Democratic Slovakia. What originated as a skilful opposition strategy for winning the power, soon (after the 1992 election victory), developed into a massive political 28
