Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Kálmán Petőcz: Slovakia since 2004 - National Populism and the Hungarian Issue
Kálmán Petőcz Chairman of the ruling Alliance of a New Citizen (ANO), grew irreconcilable. Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda eventually initiated Rusko’s removal from his cabinet post. As a direct result, the ANO split up and the total number of independent deputies in the National Council of the Slovak Republic, the country’s parliament, on whom the Dzurinda minority administration relied reached one fifth of all members of parliament. Leaders of all ruling parties, including SMK-MKP, openly began to speak of inevitability to call early parliamentary elections. At last, the Gordian knot was cut by the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) that on February 7, 2006, left the ruling coalition in protest against its coalition partners’ refusal to endorse the Treaty between Slovakia and the Holy See on Conscientious Objection. The assembly almost immediately approved a proposal to hold early parliamentary elections, which acting Parliament Chairman Béla Bugár called for June 17, 2006. Nothing now stood in the way of launching an election campaign that may be described as somewhat peculiar. Not only did hostility among formerly ruling parties increased but chairmen of two largest opposition parties, namely Robert Fico (SMER-SD) and Vladimir Mečiar (LS-HZDS), were at loggerheads with each other. As a result, all relevant parties blew their own horn but they simultaneously kept the back door open to their potential government participation in any possible combination. Fico’s criticism was targeted particularly at the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party (SDKÚ) and especially its chairman Mikuláš Dzurinda. The same was true vice versa. An obvious conclusion was that a government comprising these two parties was unthinkable; yet, analysts did not exclude that eventuality either. The only alternative that was a priori ruled out by all political analysts, commentators and party leaders was government cooperation between the Slovak National Party (SNS) and SMK-MKP. The former party’s campaign was built on virulent anti-Hungarian rhetoric; the SNS openly campaigned for a ‘Slovak’ government (i.e. free of ethnic Hungarians’ representatives) while accusing the SDKÚ and the KDH of “collaboration”. The SNS campaign also mobilized SMK-MKP voters, although they were not entirely satisfied with the party’s performance in previous years; disenchantment was observed especially in some districts of the Nitra region and in poorer parts of the Gemer region and the Bodrog River valley. Despite that, SMK-MKP posted the best ever election result in relative terms (11.68% of the popular vote), although the absolute number of ballots cast for the party was the lowest; the reason for this seeming discrepancy was that voter participation among ethnic Hungarians was higher than among the rest of the population. 68
