Slovakia’s politics in a nutshell

Everything you never wanted to know about politics in Slovakia and were therefore afraid to ask (lest I’d tell you).  I’ve finally had a chance to annotate an absurdly long and detailed presentation on Slovakia’s politics which derived in large part from the exercises I’ve been conducting on this blog (and past efforts).  The questions, some of which are rigorously answered in this presentation (and others of which I speed through hoping you’ll take my word for it):

  • What is politics in Slovakia about?  What is the struggle
  • Where is the power?
  • What are the parties like?  Their history, organization, voters, recent poll performance
  • What coalitions are possible after the elections?  Which are most probable?  Why?

Much of this is conjecture on my part, though I’ve tried to ground it as well as I could in data.  As always, I crave comments lest I write out into the void.

There are two versions:

3 thoughts on Slovakia’s politics in a nutshell

  1. Thanks for this Kevin. It makes for interesting reading. I’m wondering how your predictions might be altered by the latest MVK poll suggesting that the SNS might not make the cut.

    Robin

    • Excellent question. In the Slovak Politics in a Nutshell files there are some graphs that suggest what happens if SNS drops. It makes all of the non-SNS coalitions more likely because those votes get redistributed. In particularly it creates the mathematical possibility of (if not the kind of agreement necessary for) a Right+Hungarian+HZDS coalition. If HZDS were also to drop, it creates the slim mathematical possibility of a Right+Hungarian coalition. I’ll post more on this soon, I hope.

  2. I would say that more coalition possibilities are possible or likely than you think. This may sound cyncial, but there are certain parties (everyone has their own opinions on who they are), who have more or less fronts for certain business interests. These parties have/would have no function in opposition (or very little as parliamentary opposition often translates to regional or city government) as they can’t deliver anything to their backers. So they themselves will be willing to go into coalition with virtually anyone.

    The Hungarian parties would also be fairly willing to go in with most people I suspect if it was pointed out to them that it would be either them or someone else worse for the interests they have been elected to support.

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