Slovakia regional elections: Fico’s party loses ground to opposition

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer party got off to a poor start in the run-up to the election year: in Saturday’s regional and municipal elections, the ruling coalition held on to only two of eight governorships (heads of regions). It also failed in its main goal of winning Bratislava. At the same time, Milan Mazurek, the candidate of the far-right Republika, lost by a smaller margin than expected in the Prešov Region.

The coalition kept two regions

The coalition forces retained the Trenčín Region, where Jaroslav Baška of Smer won (57 percent), and the Nitra Region, where Branislav Becík of Hlas came out on top. The remaining regions stayed with their incumbent governors. In Banská Bystrica, Ondrej Lunter took almost 65 percent, followed by Republika candidates Miroslav Suja (15 percent) and Marian Kotleba (9 percent).

For comparison, after the successful 2013 elections Smer controlled five of the eight regions. Slovak commentator Martin Beguľ believes the party could not even field competitive candidates, and called the result a fiasco: in the Košice Region its candidate finished third, in the Trnava Region fourth. In some regions Smer backed no one at all, something that had never happened before.

What happened in Bratislava

Smer’s main target was the capital, where Fico expected a “defeat of the liberals and progressives” from Transport Minister Jozef Ráž. Ráž said he was running as an independent, but received only 32.3 percent. Matúš Vallo won a third term as mayor, running a campaign under the slogan of keeping Smer out of Bratislava. The last poll had shown Ráž trailing him by just seven percentage points. Vallo has promised to strengthen the municipal police, expand the tram network and build barrier-free crossings.

Prešov: a close fight with a far-right candidate

The closest scrutiny was on the Prešov Region. Milan Majerský, chairman of the Christian Democrats, kept his seat, beating Mazurek, who was tacitly backed by the coalition. For an hour after the polls closed Mazurek was in the lead, and his win would have made him the first far-right governor since Marian Kotleba in 2013. In the end Mazurek took about 35 percent. Majerský admitted that his rival was a tough one: nationally, Republika has passed the 10 percent mark.

Mazurek entered parliament in 2016 for Kotleba’s party and later founded Republika. A court handed him a final conviction for insulting a nation, race and belief over remarks about Roma, and he lost his seat, but he later returned to big-time politics and has been an MEP since 2024. He has visibly changed his image: he now wears a suit and tie.

According to a Slovak commentator, the result showed that Mazurek played on fear of migration and on support among young people. Richard Rybníček, president of the Union of Towns and Cities of Slovakia, described the fight for the region as more of a “political theatre”, where strength was being tested ahead of the parliamentary elections.

What the rapprochement of Smer and Republika means

A novelty of these elections was cooperation between the coalition parties and Republika, which in recent months has polled in third place behind Progressive Slovakia and Smer. Several candidates, among them Igor Šimko and Peter Hambálek, ran with banners bearing the logos of both the coalition and Republika. Minister Samuel Migaľ expects closer cooperation after the elections, and says Mazurek’s result “symbolizes something”.

Some candidates withdrew in favor of Mazurek, such as Monika Lešková of the SNS. Judita Laššáková of Smer announced her withdrawal in front of the cameras, but remained on the ballot.

Košice and the outcome

The Košice Region was won by Rastislav Trnka, who was handed an indictment a few weeks before the election over the purchase of contactless thermometers in September 2022. Charges were later added over the suspicious purchase of four Tatra gritting trucks; the damage in both cases is over 500,000 euros. Václav Hřích, an expert at the AKO agency, thinks voters looked at the roads Trnka is repairing. Opposition leader Michal Šimečka said he was disappointed with the results.

Robert Fico did not comment on his party’s results on Saturday evening.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz