Slovakia 2020.
In the 2016 elections, Robert Fico's SMER - SD party won a solid twenty-eight percent. This is despite a drop of fourteen percentage points compared to the previous election. Forty-nine mandates meant almost a third of all seats in the one hundred and fifty-member National Council of the Slovak Republic in 2016. It was a significant victory. This year's one-day decision by Slovak citizens on their parliamentary representatives may mix an unexpected potion for our neighbors. Twenty-five political entities are vying for governmental engagement, and the most talked-about one is ĹSNS - Kotleba's party. The current silver position in the pre-election polls signals the distribution of moods in Slovak society. And probably not only in Slovakia. It seems that at least a seventh, but perhaps even a quarter of our neighbours and former fellow citizens believe that the solution to the political situation in their own country may be a narrower focus on national interests. In the Czech Republic, too, this card is being played quite successfully, albeit a little more cleverly and obscurely. It is drawn mainly when the shoe is on the other foot or when it is necessary to drown out a nascent scandal. Slovak citizens are more straightforward, after all, in keeping with their national character. President Zuzana Čaputová said that if the SNS won the elections, she would invite their representatives to negotiations on forming a government. This statement can be seen as a valuable marketing ploy in favour of the Kotleba party. However, it may also be an attempt to activate Slovak society, which should realise that support for extremism in any form has always been a paving of the road to hell and destruction. The one extra day we have this year, the twenty-ninth of February, will be a test for the Slovaks whether they will succumb to the tendencies that surround them from the south and the north, not to mention the east, or whether they will capitalise on the relative rise in the level of social ethos of recent times.
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