How a new government beat the virus (for now)

February 29: Slovakia parliamentary election
Ordinary People: 25.02%
Direction – Social Democracy: 18.29%
We Are Family: 8.24%
People's Party Our Slovakia: 7.97%
TOGETHER – Civic Democracy : 6.96%
Freedom and Solidarity: 6.22%
For the People: 5.77%

The results of Slovakia’s 2020 parliamentary election results were released on March 1, a day after the election. The first positive case of coronavirus in Slovakia was diagnosed on March 6. By the 6th, one thing was clear: The country’s response to the coronavirus would need to be swift and effective, in large part because we had plenty of evidence from Italy of the severity of the disease.

Two months ago, Slovakia’s political future looked bleak, with the corrupt and dysfunctional party Smer (Direction – Social Democracy) ruling with seeming impunity over the country as a whole, and extreme right-wing parties hoping to gain more support for their short-sighted solutions. The February election upended that, ushering new and more democratic parties into power and pointing to a brighter future.

But the picture isn’t unequivocally sunny. It still remains to be seen whether the new center-right coalition – made up of an amalgam of mostly untested government parties – can create an effective bloc.

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The weeks leading up to Slovakia’s February 29 parliamentary election were particularly hectic for my family. My wife Katarína spent each minute of her free time (when our one and a half year-old daughter was asleep) planning a protest to commemorate the young investigative journalist Ján Kuciak. Kuciak was murdered in 2018 after investigating corruption in Smer. The murder set off a national reckoning about governmental malfeasance, and incited protests from young activists and pro-democracy demonstrators around the country. We planned these protests through the initiative Za slušné Slovensko (For a Decent Slovakia) with several of our friends.

February’s protest and memorial took place on Bratislava’s Freedom Square, a week before the country’s elections, which would determine whether Smer would maintain its majority. The protest attracted thousands of people, and demonstrated that the desire for upending of the political order was not just limited to a small group of activists, but had widespread support. It was the sixteenth protest Za slušné Slovensko had organized in Bratislava (many other protests were organized in dozens of Slovak cities and abroad). When the protest ended, many people went off to discuss topics from the protest with a beer in their hand. Katka and I went home with our daughter hoping the next elections would bring some change after Smer’s long rule.

While the protest demonstrated enthusiasm for ousting Smer, it was not clear in the lead up to the elections which party offered the most viable alternative for doing so. The activists I spoke to at the protest were against Smer and against the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia, ĽSNS. But opinions on which of the center-left and left-wing candidates to vote for were scattered. There was considerable support for the center-right party Oľano (Ordinary People), an anti-corruption party with a right-wing bent. Other parties that garnered enthusiasm were the liberal left-wing party Progresívne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia) which formed an election coalition with the pro-European Spolu (TOGETHER-Civil Democracy) party. Together, they campaigned on a platform of environmental awareness as well as government transparency and education. Za ľudí (For the People), the pro-EU party run by former president Andrej Kiska also gained traction. Their surge in polls was halted by a strong counter-campaign, rumored to be directed by Smer.

Early in February, my wife and I also received an unexpected invitation: the Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová invited us to the Presidential Palace. (Čaputová – a left-leaning politician, who has been endorsed by the country’s progressive parties, but who remains an independent – has a mostly ceremonial role). At the palace, Čaputová thanked us for our civil activism. She told us that our initiative had promoted civil engagement in society.

The election took place a few days later. On election night, I attended an event organized by SME, the newspaper where I work. When the exit-poll numbers came out, the whole venue burst into applause: Oľano was projected to win a clear victory. It wasn’t exactly a victory for the left, but it was a clear toppling of Smer, which had held almost-continuous power in parliament since 2006. 

As the night wore on, a series of surprising results trickled in:

It became clear that Igor Matovič, the founder of Oľano, who had campaigned on an anticorruption and anti-Smer ticket, would be the likely candidate to become the next Prime Minister. Matovič is an unusual politician. He is known for his stunts—for example putting a sign that says “Property of the Slovak Republic” on a luxury villa owned by a Smer politician. A number of prominent parties were also rollicked. It also became clear that it would be almost impossible for parties such as the right-wing nationalist Slovak National Party and the party that represents the interests of Slovakia’s Hungarian minority, Most, to enter parliament. The far right party People’s Party Our Slovakia, ĽSNS received 8% of the vote. 

Our friend Juraj Šeliga, who co-founded Za slušné Slovensko with us, decided after a year and half of protesting he would try to change the country through politics. He ran as a candidate for Za ľudí and won. He is now one of the deputy speakers of the Slovak parliament.

The greatest surprise of the election was that the progressive dual-party ticket, Progresívne Slovensko/Spolu, did not manage to get into parliament. Their liberal program managed to attract only 6.96% of the electorate’s support, missing the threshold to enter parliament by 926 votes.  The parties have since filed a complaint with the constitutional court alleging that votes were miscounted.

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In the wake of the election, the parties that emerged victorious – Oľano, the free-market Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), President Andrej Kiska’s centrist party Za ľudí and the left-wing populist party SME Rodina (We are Family), which, together, received 45.25% of vote — quickly went to work on how to form a coalition government. 

 At the same time, the outgoing Prime Minister, Peter Pellegriny of Smer, unburdened by what would happen to his ratings and eager to preserve his legacy, started to behave like a pragmatic political technocrat.

On March 9, on orders from the government, all flights to and from Italy were canceled. Schools and kindergartens in Bratislava were ordered closed on the same day, and the rest of the country soon followed suit. Visits to relatives in hospice were forbidden. On March 13, when Slovakia had only 32 reported cases of coronavirus infection, the country’s borders were closed to most travel. On March 25, when the country had only 216 active cases, it became mandatory to wear face masks in public. (The measure was perhaps not necessary: Huge portions of the Slovak public had already started wearing face masks of their own volition). The Prime Minister-elect Igor Matovič was basically forced by the moderator on a live TV show to become a role model and wear a face mask. When the President Zuzana Čaputová swore in new government on March 21, she wore a face mask that perfectly matched her outfit. 

As a result of these early measures, about six weeks after Slovakia had its first confirmed case of coronavirus, the country only has 863 reported cases, with 6 deaths and 151 people reported recovered in a population of about five and a half million. The neighboring Czech Republic, which has a population only twice the size of Slovakia’s, has about eight times as many infected citizens – 6216 at last count with 166 deaths. 

Though the government’s response to the pandemic has been swift and effective, it has raised privacy concerns, and made vulnerable groups perhaps even more vulnerable than before. On March 25, the new Slovak coalition passed a law allowing the country’s Office of Public Health to gather data from selected cellphones without a warrant. The law was preceded by a wider discussion and the final version of the law is seen as possibly adequate the situation. According to the law, the government can store and use data only during the duration of the crisis—or until December 31st. After that, the data will be deleted. 

The government has also targeted testing of Roma communities in the eastern part of Slovakia. Many Roma live in extreme poverty without running water. Now, the army has quarantined five Roma settlements and will not let people leave. Roma advocacy groups condemned the use of military which, they say, is just a demonstration of force and may prevent Roma people from accessing their jobs and necessary supplies.

The coronavirus has thrown the world into an unprecedented and frightening suspended state, with consequences we cannot yet anticipate. That’s part of why it’s so strange to report that in some ways, at least so far, the coronavirus era is as difficult as it is optimistic in Slovakia: A corrupt party has been ousted, and in leaving office, shown a capable, organized response. Two months after our marriage, my wife and I organized our first protest. We kept protesting even after our daughter was born three months later. Now, two years later, elections finally took place and Slovakia changed for the better. We hope the new government will use its opportunity and create a new version of Slovakia, for us, our daughter and everyone in this country.