The Slovakian situation
For quite a few of my Slovakian friends the outcome of Saturday’s elections came as a shock.
While most polls predicted the victory of Robert Fico, the old strongman deposed as a result of the “gentle revolution” of 2018 following the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée. But there were some exceptions favoring the liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) party; even on election night exit polls suggested that the liberals would win. This did not happen, as Fico’s right-wing pro-Putin nationalist party, the SMER-Social Democracy Party, garnered 22,89% of the votes, with the PS ending up in second place, with 18% of the vote, and Hlas (‘Voice’), a somewhat more decent group of SMER dissidents, in third place with 14.7%.
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