Slovakia’s municipal elections held on November 10 were won by independents, who are seeing their fortunes improve, the Slovak Statistics Office (CSU) reported on November 11. 

With a turnout of 48.67%, Slovak political experts believe the fact that the Smer-SD party failed to gain any mayoral seats in any regional capital is a defeat for the governing coalition.

“The Smer-SD party is getting increasingly "beaten up", particularly in the urban environment. This is caused not only by voter mood. To a degree, it is also the result of the fact that Smer-SD is failing to present interesting new candidates,” according to political analyst Darina Malova.

She added that public figures affiliated with Smer-SD in the past have either broken ties with the party or, if they served in office for a long term, had their reputations tarnished by scandals, the Slovak News Agency (TASR) reported.

President Andrej Kiska welcomed the new faces entering politics, particularly those who “put an emphasis on solutions and cooperation.” Kiska predicted last week that the year's municipal elections would be unique, as they were the first after the murder of a journalist that shook Slovak society.

Malova also pointed out that a change has occurred in most Slovak towns, and she perceives the success of younger candidates in particular to be of great importance. "We're bearing witness to a generational changing of the guard," she added.

By contrast, Smer-SD chair and former prime minister Robert Fico, during the TV TA3 programme 'V politike' (In Politics), stressed the results showed that the governing coalition represented by Smer-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Most-Hid are the only parties with standard political structures despite earlier reports by “media lynch mobs,” as he called them.

“Of course we would have liked to perform better, but in terms of partisan politics, we won the election, despite what happened to us. This is a very pleasant result. It just has been confirmed that no alternative exists to this coalition. It turns out that no opposition actually exists. It is nothing but a bubble. The only real opposition is KDH," said Fico. KDH is the party of the non-parliamentary Christian Democrats.

Fico also suggested that Slovakia might want to think of embracing the Czech model of municipal elections, within which mayors are not elected directly by the public but appointed based on coalition agreements.

The results showed that Slovakians want change, said Kiska, commenting on the results. These election results revealed how people envision a “decent and honest Slovakia”, declared the president. “The desire to change Slovakia into a cultured country is enormous. People rejected the politics of seditious campaigns, negative campaigns, anonymity and slander,” he said, according to TASR.

“When we look at other regional cities, it seems that the emergence of a new political generation is unstoppable. We have had a decent, transparent and creative campaign. We also want to run Bratislava in the same transparent way. A period of cooperation is about to begin. I call on all enthusiastic and active people to join us,” said new Bratislava mayor Matus Vallo, who ran in the elections with the support of non-parliamentary parties Progressive Slovakia and Together.

The elections were held in 2,919 towns and villages across Slovakia. Independent mayoral candidates dominated, being elected in 1,232 Slovakian towns and villages, representing 42.42% of the total votes, followed by Smer-SD candidates elected in 592 towns (20.38%) and the Slovak National Party (SNS) candidates with 160 mayors (5.50%).