Slovakia gay marriage/adoption/sex education referendum - Feb. 7, 2015

[EPG]

In fact, multiple European countries have had referendums on legalising divorce simpliciter in the last twenty years.

[EPG]

A Eurobarometer poll in 2006 reported majority support in the Czech Republic, and furthermore stronger support than in France, the UK and Portugal, which have legalised gay marriage in the interim. Wikipedia describes a series of annual polls with support at lower levels, sometimes reporting a majority. Several other countries have strongly-similar institutions (Estonia; Croatia). These three countries are self-consciously oriented toward Western Europe, and will probably be the first to consistently support gay marriage, despite the Croatian referendum.

[EPG]

OK, thanks for the numbers.

If we take the poll at face value and look just at turnout and the first question, it means the Yes share is 85 per cent overall, 92 per cent among voters and, therefore, about 81 per cent among non-voters.

The same maths suggest fewer than 40 per cent of Yes supporters plan to vote, while fewer than 20 per cent of No supporters will turn out. Even if there were no tactical abstention, it wouldn't reach half of voters.

[EPG]

I would focus attention on the two most northerly and mountainous regions, Žilina and Prešov; as justification, turnout elsewhere was within a narrow band from 15 to 22 per cent. These two regions are on the Polish border and are the heartland of the (Catholic) Christian democrats. There are hardly any Hungarians here, so politics in this part of Slovakia tends to be less about Slovaks v. Hungarians than the rest of the country, and the salience of "European-normal" political issues is consequently higher. Conversely, the religious minorities are relatively numerous, so perhaps that informs a greater political expression of Catholicism among the majority of the population, as manifested in the strong vote for KDH. Also, these regions are more rural than the rest of Slovakia (except Banská Bystrica) and turnout tends to be high.

[EPG]

Slovakia has an unusually multi-polar political system for Central Europe, reflecting its multi-faceted society at the crossroads of Europe. Here is a really intriguing map of a low-turnout election, the 2014 European Parliament election, which shows what lies beneath the SMER hegemony.


Observe that the southern districts are dominated by the pro-Hungarian parties, Most-Híd (Bridge) and the SMK/MKP (Hungarian Community Party). The most important political cleavages vary through the country and have not been stable through time, but are now essentially based on ethnicity in the south and religious-fervour in the north. When the liberal-conservatives of SDKÚ-DS were stronger, you would have seen them do well in urban centres around Bratislava.

SMER and (to a much greater extent) the Christian Democrats get a much bigger share of the Slovak-party vote in the rural north where Slovaks are more numerous. The converse is true of the area near the Carpathian basin, where the more secular conservatives and liberals do well.

[EPG]

@EPG: I am sure whether your post was a reply to what I wrote, but a few comments:

It's all part of an ongoing conversation; agreement and disagreement are overrated on the internet. The best summary is that I am probably agreeing with you, but there is more to Slovakia, too, for those interested in why there is a north-south divide.

So there are several sub-regional districts ("okres") where the pro-Hungarian parties get a majority. This is what I mean by places where Slovaks are relatively numerous: places where we can't just look at the SMER or KDH vote alone, because so few ethnic Hungarians support them. The secular econ-lib parties do better among the Slovak parties in those districts and Catholics/left-nationalists do worse. I think that agrees with your thesis of the north-south social divide, though I don't know if it quite proves that there are no systemic differences between the two groups in those regions, but it doesn't matter either way.

And, of course even in areas with few Hungarians, the Hungarian question informs Slovak nationalism more than relations with any other country (even the Czechs!), and this is naturally more salient near Hungary. It is the classic pattern wherein ethnic fears are strong among communities who are unfamiliar with the perceived threat but feel they are proximate to it, as opposed to being either in the milieu or distant.

As for Most-Híd, they are like Alliance in the north of Ireland. Their bicommunalism in ideology and personnel belies the fact that most of their voters are from one community.

Year	Pre-SMK/MKP	SMK/MKP	Most-Híd	Total vote (%)
1990	9			10
1992	10			10
1994		10		10
1998		9		9
2004		11		11
2006		12		12
2010		4	8	12
2012		4	7	11