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In brief

Hungarian parties get no seats in Slovakia’s parliament election

Main Magyar alliance below 5% threshold, despite being most voted in three districts

 
Alliance leader Krisztián Forró.
Alliance leader Krisztián Forró. Author: Szövetség-Aliancia
Alliance —the main party alliance of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia— has been left out of the distribution of seats in the Parliament of this Central European country, having failed to reach the minimum of 5% of the votes required by electoral law. The party, heir to the historic Hungarian Community Party (MKP), won 4.4% of the statewide vote in the election held on 1 October.

However, the Hungarian party achieved higher percentages in the regions where the Magyar population is concentrated: 12.7% in Trnava (third place), and 13.9% in Nitra (fourth place). It should be noted that none of the eight regions into which Slovakia is divided has a Hungarian majority. For this it is necessary to come down to the second administrative level, the districts: in three of them (Dunaszerdahely, Komárom, and Rimaszombat), Alliance was the most voted party.

Alliance ran on a programme demanding more linguistic and cultural rights for the Hungarian minority, including official status for the Hungarian language in Slovakia’s southern regions.

Other Hungarian parties, such as Most-Híd or the Hungarian Forum, have obtained much lower results, below 1%. The Hungarian electoral camp in Slovakia has been internally divided for years.

The winner of the elections was Smer, the party of former prime minister Robert Fico, which holds centre-left views on economic issues and right-wing stances on social issues. Fico has expressed views on several occasions, and has further claimed that the Slovak republic was not established “for minorities,” but “for the Slovak nation.”