2019 Slovak presidential elections

[Estrella]

An election for the mostly ceremonial office of President is taking place in Slovakia on Saturday, March 16th, with a possible second round two weeks later on March 30th.

The incumbent President Andrej Kiska could run for another term, but he has decided not to. He was elected in 2014 as an independent liberal businessman, defeating the left-wing then-PM Robert Fico 59.4% to 40.6%.
He's been through multiple financial scandals (most recently regarding some creative accounting with campaign expenses), and while not hated, he certainly isn't popular.

An overview of the at least somewhat relevant candidates:

Zuzana Čaputová, the candidate of PS (a small progressive party), SaS, OĽaNO and Spolu (centre-right opposition): An environmental activist and lawyer who for years fought against an illegal landfill in her hometown, eventually winning and receiving the Goldman Prize in 2016. She has a very socially liberal (for Slovakia) platform - such as supporting registered partnerships and adoption by gay couples, in addition to standard anti-corruption and environmental slogans.

Maroš Šefčovič, running for the ruling Smer-SD (though he's officially independent): A long-time diplomat, served in a myriad of EU posts (currently as the commisioner for Energy Union). To me at least, he comes off as a dreary apparatchik.

Štefan Harabin, an independent and a former (very controversial) Minister of Justice and a Supreme Court justice, campaigning as a nationalist and populist conservative ("Christian values are being destroyed by islamisation" kind of thing), mixed with vague populism about "helping citizens."

Marian Kotleba, the vitriolic leader of the Neo-Nazi (as in giving out "charity cheques" for €1488) party ĽSNS.

Béla Bugár, standing for Most-Híd, a liberal Hungarian minority party. Has been in politics since forever.

František Mikloško, a moderate conservative. Also has been in politics since forever.

Milan Krajniak, an MP of the right-wing populist Sme Rodina ("We Are Family", a party led by a man who had ten children with just as many women.)

Eduard Chmerlár, a left-wing activist and historian.

There was also Robert Mistrík, a liberal who polled in high teens until he withdrew from the race in favour of Čaputová.

Polls agree that Čaputová is the clear frontrunner, but given how unreliable they are in Slovakia, take that with a pound of salt. Also, it's forbidden to release polls in the 14 days before the election, so nobody knows where exactly things are right now.

An AKO poll from March 1st (the most recent poll available):
Čaputová 53% (would win by the first round!)
Šefčovič 17%
Harabin 11%
Kotleba 6%
Bugár 4%
Mikloško 3%
Krajniak 2%
Chmelár 2%
Assorted minions 2%

(This is my first ever post on Atlas, so please excuse any mistakes)
(edit: formatting)

[wxtransit]

Welcome to Atlas! Seems like an interesting coalition backing Čaputová, do you think she'll win?

[Estrella]

Welcome to Atlas! Seems like an interesting coalition backing Čaputová, do you think she'll win?

Maybe not in the first round, but I think she will win. She's supported by basically everybody who doesn't like both the ruling Smer and right-wing populists/nutcases (and with how Smer lets themselves be pushed around by anti-EU/NATO people in their coalition, they're increasingly the same thing) - that's also why she has such a broad coalition.

[Estrella]

I went out and voted for Čaputová (just barely made it, I turned 18 a couple of weeks ago). The polling station seemed awfully quiet, but I might have just come there at a wrong time. No turnout numbers are available, and on the internet everybody is saying something different. First round turnout last time around was 43.4%.

My guess is that low turnout will probably benefit Šefčovič, favoured by pensioners who always vote, high turnout will be good for anti-estabilishment candidates whose sympathisers rarely turn out - Harabin and Kotleba. No idea what the impact on Čaputová will be, but I'm sure >50% is too good to be true.

The polls are closing at 22:00 CET. Doesn't look like there's going to be an exit poll. The newspaper Sme has probably the best results site: volby.sme.sk

[PSOL]

Is the journalist killing still on the mind of many voters right now? Who has benefitted the most from the shooting electorally (obviously not including Čaputová)? What core constituency is still with Smer-SD at this point?

[Estrella]

Is the journalist killing still on the mind of many voters right now?

Not as much as last year, but just a couple of days ago the enterpreneur Marián Kočner (who has some connections with Smer) was arrested for ordering the murder. But this is like the 1000th hypothesis of who might have done it, and most people are just tired of the whole thing.

Who has benefitted the most from the shooting electorally (obviously not including Čaputová)?

There was no single beneficiary, but Smer definitely lost a lot, and many people are now willing to vote for whoever the strongest anti-Smer candidate is (Čaputová's party is polling only 9%).

What core constituency is still with Smer-SD at this point?

As a left-wing, but populist, nationalist and socially conservative party, Smer was a perfect fit for poor small towns and villages. But I guess those voters are all over the place now. Retired women pining for the Communist era were always the sterotypical Smer voters (every International Women's Day, Robert Fico gives a speech in a stadium filled to the brim with elderly ladies) and I think those are the only ones still with them.

[mgop]

did anybody mention kosovo during campaign, because as you know slovakia is one of 5 eu countries that did not recognized kosovo

[Estrella]

did anybody mention kosovo during campaign, because as you know slovakia is one of 5 eu countries that did not recognized kosovo

Wasn't an issue at all, and most people probably don't even know about that.

[DavidB.]

Did SNS endorse Harabin?

[Estrella]

Did SNS endorse Harabin?

They haven't endorsed anyone (Harabin has his own outfit called Národná koalícia/National Coalition), but most of their voters will likely vote for him.

[Estrella]

The polls have just closed, but we aren't gonna results for a while. Voting has been extended in a village in the east of the country, where a drunk local councillor stole the ballot box, opened it and threw out the 285 ballots that were inside (they managed to collect them afterwards). The results can't be released until every polling station has closed. Still, lol.

Edit: We'll get first results around 23:00 CET

[Estrella]

Well, there was an exit poll after all:

Zuzana Čaputová 42.0%
Maroš Šefčovič 17.6%
Štefan Harabin 13.7%
Marian Kotleba 9.0%
František Mikloško 6.4%
Milan Krajniak 4.0%
Béla Bugár 3.8%
Eduard Chmelár 2.7%
The rest 0.8%

No turnout numbers yet, but some estimates say 60-ish percent - a huge jump from 43.4% in 2014.

How the second round could go, according to a Focus poll from late February:
Čaputová 64% vs. Šefčovič 36%
Čaputová 72% vs. Harabin 28%

All aboard the Čaputrain! Who says East European politics is always depressing?

[DavidB.]

With 21.6% of the vote in, it's 38.9% for Caputova, 18.9% for Sefcovic, 14.5% for Harabin and 10.6% for Kotleba.

[Estrella]

With 50.2% of the vote in:

Čaputová 39.1%
Šefčovič 18.8%
Harabin 14.5%
Kotleba 10.7%
Mikloško 5.6%
Bugár 4.4%
Krajniak 2.9%
Chmelár 2.8%

[Estrella]

Šefčovič just spoke, and basically the whole speech was about "our traditional Christian values", about how he went to church every Sunday as a child, how important that was for him etc. Clearly going hard after Harabin's voters, and preparing to attack Čaputová in the second round campaign for being too liberal.

This reminds me of Fico doing the exactly same thing in 2014, until it was discovered that when he was a member of the Communist Party in the 80's, he declared he was an atheist. Whoopsie.

[DavidB.]

Is Caputova connected to any oligarchs?

68.5% in and almost no changes: Caputova 39.4%, Sefcovic 18.8%, Harabin 14.5% and Kotleba 10.7%. Quite a good showing for Kotleba...

[Estrella]

Is Caputova connected to any oligarchs?

No, she's just an activist running on her record who had the luck of being charismatic and sane, unlike basically everybody else in the field. Harabin is only of the major candidates who has shady connections (to an Albanian drug lord). Smer is also uncomfortably close to many oligarchs, but Šefčovic spent all of his career in Brussels and IMO he is clean himself.

Quite a good showing for Kotleba...

He also underpolled badly in the 2016 parliamentary election, going from 2-3% to a result of 8%.

[Estrella]

Someone on TV called the second round a referendum on Catholic Church in Slovakia, mentioning that their officially endorsed Šefčovič, while some clergymen rallied behind Harabin. This is probably bad news for Čaputová, because Slovakia is still a highly religious and conservative country (but so was Ireland ten years ago...) and while the exit poll showed her leading Šefčovič 64-36 in the second round, anything can happen (Čaputová herself was polling single digits a month ago). Doesn't mean she can't win, but I'd predict it's not going to be a landslide.

[DavidB.]

With 97.3% in, Caputova is now north of 40% at 40.5%. Sefcovic is a distant second at 18.7%, followed by Harabin at 14.4% and Kotleba at 10.4%. Kotleba now has 214k votes compared to almost 210k in the 2016 general election. Should indeed mean that turnout was high today.

[Estrella]

For the curious, here are the results from various places around the country. Some of these numbers might be a bit off, as I did this with around 90% counted.

Bratislava - Staré Mesto (the capital city's uber-rich downtown): Čaputová 66.9%, Šefčovič 11.1%, Harabin 8.0%, Mikloško 6.6%, Kotleba 2.2%

Svidník district (remote, mountainous and poor): Harabin 25.7%, Šefčovič 24.5%, Čaputová 19.6%, Kotleba 11.1%

Dunajská Streda district (over 80% Hungarian): Čaputová 54.6%, Bugár 25.3%, Harabin 5.9%, Šefčovič 5.4%, Kotleba 2.7%

Rimavská Sobota district (highest unemployment in the country, but also 37% Hungarian): Čaputová 32.7%, Šefčovič 16.9%, Bugár 16.5%, Kotleba 15.1%, Harabin 11.2%

[Estrella]

Now it's dead certain that the second round will be between Čaputová and Šefčovič. It will take place on Saturday, March 30.

Some thoughts on what the candidates have going for and against them:

Čaputová
+ Political newcomer
+ Has the image of an ordinary person who fought against corrupt authorities
+ The anti-Smer candidate (the majority of people hate Smer)
- Too socially liberal for majority of the country (on LGBT issues mostly)
- She's a woman - that might still be a problem for some

Šefčovic
+ Populism and (social) conservativism is very popular here
+ Harabin and Kotleba = 25% of voters who will never vote for Čaputová
- A very well paid EU bureaucrat, perceived as distant and aloof
- Studied on an elite Soviet university, underminining his "Christian values" message
- Has to be careful with Harabin/Kotleba rhetoric, in order not to alienate moderate voters

[DavidB.]

How many Kotleba voters will actually be willing to turn out for Sefcovic, or, for that matter, to turn out for any non-L'SNS option?

[Estrella]

How many Kotleba voters will actually be willing to turn out for Sefcovic, or, for that matter, to turn out for any non-L'SNS option?

Good question. Most of them are young and/or disillusioned with politics, so I guess not many. Depends on how much they'll hate Čaputová.

[PSOL]

Is Čaputová Left-wing on economic issues as Smer-SD, or has she run a more fiscally conservative campaign.

[Estrella]

Is Čaputová Left-wing on economic issues as Smer-SD, or has she run a more fiscally conservative campaign.

She didn't talk much about economy, but her party are some kind of mushy centrists. On their website, they write a lot about less taxes on working people, balanced budgets, more efficiency, supporting enterpreneurship and such stuff, but also about spending more money on schools, healthcare and families.