BRATISLAVA — Slovakia’s anti-corruption opposition parties easily won Saturday’s parliamentary election — but now the hard work begins.
Five parties calling themselves the “democratic opposition” received nearly 50 percent of the vote and 78 out of 150 seats in parliament, ending the long-time rule of the left-wing populist Smer party under Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and party chairman Robert Fico. Smer saw its popularity plummet in the wake of the 2018 murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová.
Within this alliance, the center-right Ordinary People party of Igor Matovič came out on top with more than 25 percent of the vote. But two parties within the alliance didn’t receive enough votes to enter parliament, meaning Matovič fell short of his goal of having a majority of 90 MPs needed to make constitutional changes to the judiciary that Matovič argues are necessary to crack down harder on corruption.
If Matovič still wants to meet that target, that means he’ll have to team up with a party leader with whom he doesn’t always see eye to eye: Boris Kollár of the right-wing populist We Are Family group.
Matovič has ruled out working with Smer, and said he’s open to negotiating with We Are Family, which finished third in the election and will have 17 MPs — more than enough to satisfy Matovič’s goal. However, this may lead to a government that is far from stable.
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Both Ordinary People and We Are Family are defined and dominated by their chairmen, who have different political priorities. In addition, Kollár was not part of the “democratic opposition” and preferred to remain independent.
Matovič’s main platform has long been fighting corruption, and he’s become known for staging headline-grabbing stunts to question the integrity of the outgoing Smer government.
For example, he and members of his party visited a luxury villa on the French Riviera belonging to former Smer Finance Minister Ján Počiatek in January, and attached a sign to its gate reading “Property of the Slovak Republic.” Photos of the event spread rapidly on social media and led to media scrutiny of Počiatek’s lavish lifestyle.
Kollár, on the other hand, has been photographed vacationing with known members of organized crime, which Matovič has acknowledged was a “problem.” Kollár denied he had done anything wrong.
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And while Matovič has prioritized fighting corruption, Kollár’s main platform during the campaign was a push for more and cheaper public housing as well as benefits for students and the elderly.
Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová is expected to soon ask Matovič to form the next government. While he will be able to govern without We Are Family, his attempt to negotiate with Kollár will be thorny and there is no guarantee that he will succeed.
If Matovič does succeed in forming a government, he will get to work on trying to deliver on calls for a crackdown on corruption and cronyism, stirred up by the 2018 murders. The killings sparked nationwide protests, which forced Smer’s then-Prime Minister Fico to resign and led to last year’s election of anti-corruption activist Čaputová as president.
The investigation into the murders uncovered government employees, some close to Fico, with links to the Italian mafia, as well as officials with ties to Marián Kočner, the millionaire businessman who has been charged with ordering the murders. (Kočner denies the allegations.)
According to Pavol Baboš, a political scientist at Bratislava’s Comenius University, Ordinary People owes its success as much to voters’ intense dislike of Smer as to the political skills of its chairman.
“I believe that many people opted for Matovič because it was important for them that not only there is a new government, but that Fico would be symbolically defeated as well,” said Baboš.