Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Kálmán Petőcz: National Populism and Electoral Behaviour
Kálmán Petőcz It is important to note that the featured map divides Slovakia into 50 electoral districts or constituencies (obvod in Slovak) while most media showed maps dividing the country into 79 districts of general administration (okres in Slovak).1 On these maps, the southern strip marking the territory where Iveta Radičová had defeated Ivan Gašparovič was continuous, stretching along Slovakia’s entire border with Hungary from Bratislava to Čierna nad Tisou. In his run for re-election, incumbent President Ivan Gašparovič was supported by two ruling parties - SMER-Social Democracy (SMER-SD) led by Prime Minister Robert Fico and the Slovak National Party (SNS) led by Ján Slota. The third ruling party, namely the People’s Party-Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (LS-HZDS) led by former premier Vladimír Mečiar refrised to endorse Mr. Gašparovič and even overtly dissociated itself from his candidature. Nevertheless, it is very likely that a significant proportion of HZDS supporters voted for the incumbent president as well, particularly in the second round when the atmosphere within society had aggravated due to nationalist rhetoric of the SNS and reticence of the president and the prime minister. The SNS focused on ‘warning’ Slovak voters against a potential threat of proclaiming Hungarian autonomy in southern Slovakia if Iveta Radičová won the elections. Several days before the second round of elections, unknown perpetrators circulated leaflets in a number of municipalities around south-western Slovakia claiming that Radičová had “promised autonomy to the Hungarians”. A similar advertisement was later commissioned by an agency that worked for President Gašparovič. Eventually it turned out that the original advertisement had been commissioned by the SNS. On a special press conference, Ján Slota declared that it would be “sick if the Hungarian minority elected the head of state for the majority.” Neither President Gašparovič nor Premier Fico did anything to dissociate themselves from these assertions.2 A general view within the liberally oriented intellectual elite is that “frightening with Hungarians and their autonomy resonates especially among voters from the north of the country who rarely come in contact with citizens of Hungarian origin.”3 This view is seemingly corroborated by exact statistical data from all previously held elections as well as by various sociological surveys analyzing electoral behaviour in Slovakia.'1 If we examined the results of all previous parliamentary elections, we would find out that parties with a strong national-populist appeal (i.e. SNS, LS-HZDS and SMER-SD) had always lost in southern districts including Bratislava and Košice; these districts have been dominated by ethnic Hungarian parties and centre-right parties with a strong pro-European and civic appeal. Do these statistical data actually justify a conclusion that electoral behaviour of Slovaks (i.e. voters of Slovak nationality) inhabiting northern and 100
