Górny: Elections in Slovakia that is good news for the Visegrad Group. "The cohesiveness will be maintained"

Saturday’s elections in Slovakia resulted in an unexpectedly high victory for the OLaNO (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) party, which in the West is described as populist, although - seen from the Polish perspective - it has a rather centre-right character with a clear anti-corruption trait. Everything seems to indicate that the winning party will form a government coalition with other formations in the centre and on the right side of the political scene, such as Sme Rodina (We are Family) and SaS (Freedom and Solidarity).

This is good news for the Visegrad Group because these parties are against the federalisation of the European Union and the centralist tendencies of Brussels, as well as against EU immigration policy and the forced quota mechanism for refugees. In many political matters, they are much closer to the current authorities in Warsaw and Budapest than the previous government team from the social democratic SMER party (which nota bene loyally cooperated within the V4). The cohesiveness of the Visegrad Group will thus be maintained and perhaps even greater.

The worst-case scenario for Visegrad would be a victory for the liberal-left coalition Progressive Slovakia - SPOLU (Together), which is closest to George Soros’ ‘open society’ principles. The progressimists have got some wind under their wings especially after last year’s victory in the presidential election of their representative, Zuzana Čaputova. Her triumph was received as an indication of future changes, and she was even proclaimed „Macron in the skirt”. With her success, she was to pave the way for Slovakia’s Progressive Power, just as the French President secured a parliamentary victory for his party, En Marche!

Čaputova herself behaved as if she was absolutely certain of it. Although the Slovak parliament rejected the Istanbul Convention twice last year, she did not accept this. In her opinion, the MPs expressed only a general declaration of intent and did not make a specific decision. There was no doubt that she was trying to stall to delay the procedure until the elections in the hope that the new parliament - already in a changed composition - would ratify the controversial document. However, at the last sitting before the elections, Members managed to reject the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.

Čaputova’s victory in the presidential election in April 2019 was possible thanks to the rejection by the majority of Slovaks of the previous government composition, which was charged with moral responsibility for the political murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. At first, it seemed that the potential of social anger that brought Čaputova to the presidential chair would be best used by Progressive Slovakia. However, it turned out that the electorate preferred the centre-right alternative, while the liberal-left forces did not get into parliament at all.

Progressive Slovakia entered into an electoral coalition with the SPOLU party, which meant that their block had to exceed the 7% threshold. However, it received… 6.96% of the vote and did not win even a single mandate. This means that the main force encouraging the moral revolution and also the most reluctant towards right-wing government in Poland and Hungary found itself outside parliament.