Spiegel: Right-Wing Extremists Could Win Big in Slovak Election

The other parties in the Slovak parliament, to be sure, have made clear that they do not intend to form a coalition with Kotleba under any circumstances. But whether they will remain true to their word is by no means certain. The political landscape is fissured and the liberal camp is divided: If the far-right does as well as polls suggest it could in next week's election, democracy in Slovakia could soon follow the same path as Poland and Hungary. And this despite the fact that Slovakia has long been considered an example of successful integration with the West. Slovakia's roughly 5 million citizens have for years achieved annual economic growth of at least 3 percent and the country enjoys full employment. Carmakers like Mercedes, Kia, VW and Renault are the largest employers. Slovakia adopted the euro in 2005. [...]

Ideological differences have prevented the formation of a united, democratic bloc in the center -- one that could siphon off support from SMER on the left and fend off the demagogue Kotleba on the right. The political center, though, is frayed, and the egos of the party leaders has made any kind of rapprochement difficult. [...]

In 2017, he even handed out checks to poor families worth exactly 1,488 euros ($1,610). The number is a popular code among white supremacists: The number 14 is shorthand for the "14 Words" slogan popularized by the American neo-Nazi David Lane, while 88 stands for "Heil Hitler," as H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. The message that Kotleba sends to voters is that they can feel comfortable identifying with their nationalist history. And that includes the Slovak government, which during World War II was long controlled by Hitler. The clerical-fascist regime of the dictator Jozef Tiso eliminated members of the opposition and helped deport Slovak Jews, most of whom were sent to Auschwitz.

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Foreign Policy: Can Zuzana Caputova Save Slovakia?

A talented orator, Caputova comes across as reserved but confident, the qualities she first showed to the public in televised presidential debates in February and March. She speaks openly about truth, justice, and equality, which, according to her supporters, embodies a positive message reminiscent of Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright turned president of Czechoslovakia, who has remained a political and moral icon in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic since they split apart. [...]

Caputova’s greatest triumph as a lawyer—and her ticket to the national political stage—was a victory against an illegal dumpsite in her hometown of Pezinok in western Slovakia. The 14-year battle against a wealthy developer with ties to local authorities—which involved filing lawsuits, organizing protests, and petitions to European Union institutions—won her the 2016 Goldman Prize, a leading award honoring environmental activists often called the Green Nobel. [...]

Given the ruling party’s close ties with an indicted tycoon, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Caputova, who was a frequent participant at anti-government demonstrations after the murders, has cast her campaign as a struggle between good and evil. With the catchy Star Wars-like election slogan “Postavme sa zlu, spolu to dokazeme” (“Let’s face the evil together”), she offered herself as a new breed of politician: exciting, different, and untainted by scandals. [...]

The most recent presidential polls show Caputova hovering around 60 percent of the vote, well ahead of second-place Maros Sefcovic, a current EU commissioner. A 52-year-old Soviet-educated career diplomat who has gained a reputation for being genuinely pro-European, he was accused by opponents of pandering when, in order to attract right-wing voters, he appealed to “traditional, Christian values” in contrast to what he called Caputova’s “ultraliberal agenda.”

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Political Critique: Could Slovakia Elect A (Somewhat) Progressive President?

Interesting times have come upon Slovakia: while the mass gatherings remembering that it has been a year since the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak still chanted slogans protesting against the rule of the SMER-SD party (social democrats in name only, in reality your garden variety populists with a conservative bent), they only served as a sad punctuation of the fact nothing really happened apart from the resignation of the then-PM. Robert Fico, apparently finding himself without anything to do, decided that ruling the country should be followed up by being appointed a judge of the Constitutional Court after having brilliantly convinced the Parliament that 13,5 is, in fact, more than 15 when it comes to the required number of years spent working as lawyer. Almost immediately afterward, the genius mathematician’s judicial career was nipped in the bud by the current President, who – not unreasonably – pointed out that the function has a moral dimension and a man forced to resign over mass public protests concerning the process of investigating a murder might not be the best candidate for a judge. Fico responded by having his party boycott the nominations of all the other candidates, leaving the Constitutional court effectively paralyzed as the four remaining judges is a number insufficient to reach a verdict in most issues. Which might pose some problems as the Slovaks are about to elect a new President and the Constitution’s wording regarding the amount of votes required to win the first round is unclear. And the only one with the authority to re-interpret that is, you guessed it, the Constitutional Court, currently lacking the manpower do anything about the mess thanks to a vengeful ex-PM. Interesting times, interesting times. [...]

52% is an optimistic estimate, especially for a liberal candidate in mostly conservative Slovakia. But there are several factors playing in Čaputová’s favor. One, people are disillusioned with the current government as the Ján Kuciak anniversary protests showed, and Čaputová has no connections to that; her biggest claim to fame before the elections was environmental activism, specifically (and more shockingly, successfully) fighting against an illegal landfill built by a business connected to both SMER and Kuciak-implicated businessman Kočner – according to her website, anyway. Two, she is potentially acceptable to voters who do not necessarily share her views but are rightly terrified of having their country represented by a conspiracy freak or a neo-Nazi. Three, she is the only candidate openly supportive of minorities; such trustworthy sources as the Czech mutation of Sputnik frequently accuse her of such horrible crimes as supporting LGBT equality and pro-immigration propaganda. [...]

See, the President of Slovakia is purely representative (unless they pull a Zeman, may his hemorrhoids explode, and start overstepping their authority), and a lot of their power is the power to draw attention and open public discussion. Slovakia needs this; we’re talking a country that has decided to incorporate the frankly medieval „traditional“ definition of marriage into its Constitution as late as 2014. A President sympathetic to the plights of minorities could finally draw out the issues “we just don’t talk about” like discrimination of minorities to public attention – kicking and screaming, if necessary.

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The Guardian: How a Slovakian neo-Nazi got elected

In many of the smaller settlements there were simply not enough jobs, and the most talented people got out as soon as they could. There was a vague resentment at being seen as second-class citizens inside the European Union, and a more acute feeling that the Slovak political class was isolated from the masses and only interested in lining its pockets. Soon enough, the same issues would fuel the rise of rightwing populism across the region. Within a few years, after migration and nationalism had taken over the political agenda, much of Europe would also be grappling with the far-right’s success at the ballot box. But back in 2013, nobody was expecting a neo-Nazi to win an election. How was it possible that 55% of voters had backed someone this extreme? [...]

Kotleba rebuffed my attempts to talk with him, saying he did not trust western journalists, so, instead, I met Milan Uhrík, who was Kotleba’s deputy in Banská Bystrica and is now an MP from his party. We drank coffee in a shopping mall outside his home town of Nitra, an hour’s drive away from Banská Bystrica. Regarded as the polished face of Kotleba’s party, Uhrík had a couple of days’ worth of light stubble and wore a checked shirt. He spoke to me softly in fluent English, and although he was friendly enough, within seven minutes of us sitting down, he was on the defensive, insisting unprompted that he had no problems with “the Jews”. He repeatedly denied Kotleba or the party was racist or fascist, batting away criticism with wide-eyed mock-surprise and the predictable retort that the real victims of discrimination were white Slovaks.

Uhrík ran over what he saw as the achievements of Kotleba’s time in office, which he lamented were fairly miserly only because the central government had blocked them from doing more. I asked him what he was most proud of, and he buried himself in his phone, looking for the right English translation. “Ah, pickaxes, that’s the word,” he said with a boyish grin. “Pickaxes and shovels – that was our programme.” The policy in question hit on two of Kotleba’s favourite themes in one: Roma and roads. It involved long-term unemployed people being put to manual labour on the roads, using the simplest of tools. It employed around 90 people, many of them Roma. “They couldn’t work with computers, or do some business, they were simplest people on the labour market, but they have to do something because when they sit at home and do nothing they just start drinking, stealing and doing some criminal stuff,” he said. Kotleba’s programme was widely criticised for being both demeaning and pointlessly inefficient. It was soon shut down by the regional parliament – in Uhrík’s mind, because they were alarmed by its success. [...]

After being crushed at the polls, the party was liquidated by the courts in 2006 for its overtly anti-democratic nature. Kotleba took a brief break from politics, opening a shop in Banská Bystrica called “KKK – English fashion”. The three Ks were meant to represent the three Kotlebas, but the Ku Klux Klan reference was fairly obvious, especially given the clothing on sale – T-shirts and hoodies with far-right emblems and insignia. Kotleba and his followers regularly dressed in Hlinka Guard uniforms (making minor alterations, as the actual uniforms were illegal). “We are Slovaks, not Jews, and that is why we are not interested in the Jewish issue,” he said in 2009, when asked about the wartime deportations of the Jews from Slovakia by the very unit in whose uniform he was dressed. [...]

Kotleba did not have control of the regional parliament, which tried to frustrate his initiatives at every turn, but he set about making his influence felt wherever he could. He was particularly put out by programmes promoting human rights and tolerance in schools, and issued guidelines suggesting that instead of doing that, it would be better if the schools held beauty pageants. These were aimed at “girls learning to present themselves as ladies, and for them to see that there is still a world that values women’s dignity and spiritual beauty”. Some schools ignored the recommendations and still held the anti-extremism sessions; others did indeed hold beauty contests. Kotleba’s Kulturkampf continued in other areas, as he cancelled a contemporary dance festival he deemed to contain “pornography”, as well as an EU-funded project to resettle people with mental disabilities from a decaying communist-era facility into smaller supported housing units, and reintegrate them into society.

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