Slovak parliamentary election, 2012

• SMER: 83
• Most: 13
• SDKÚ: 11
• KDH: 16
• Olano: 16

The early parliamentary election in Slovakia in 2012 was held on 10 March 2012. Newly elected members of the National Council. Overall, competed in 2967 candidates from 26 political parties.

Prehistory

In October 2011, the center-right government collapsed under Prime Minister Iveta Radicova to a vote of confidence in parliament. Differences in the four-party coalition over the planned expansion of the euro rescue had led to Radicova linked the vote on the euro bailout in parliament with the vote of confidence. The vote failed, after the Government Group of the Sloboda a Solidarita ( SaS ) with the opposition voted against.

Government and the opposition ( with the exception of SaS- cabinet members ) agreed that Radičová government would remain until early elections -executive in office. For this purpose, however, a constitutional amendment was necessary because, according to the then constitution Radicova after losing a confidence vote actually not in office would be allowed to stay.

Prior to the election, there was for the detection of so-called "Gorilla Affair " (Slovak Kauza Gorila ), a corruption scandal. Object is the connection Slovakian politicians with the private capital group Penta Investments, as well as alleged bribery of government officials in the millions on the occasion of privatizations and large public allocations under the second Dzurinda Mikuláš government in the years 2005/06. The trigger was an alleged snooping protocol of the Slovak Information Service, the circulating since late December 2011 at the Internet and the code name " Gorila " bears.

Electoral system

The National Council is elected by proportional representation. There is a minimum threshold of 5 percent for individual parties for a coalition of two or three parties, and 7 percent for four or more parties 10 percent. Elections take place every four years.

Parties

The following parties entered the election (the number of candidates in brackets):

Surveys

Here is a table with surveys of agencies Focus, MVK, Polis and WakeUp. For results of five percent or more in brackets mandates are given.

Election result

The opposition Social Democrats won the early parliamentary election clear and will replace the previously ruling center -right coalition. With 44.4 percent of the vote, the party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico, Smer - SD reached according to the preliminary results, an absolute majority of parliamentary seats (83 deputies). The share of the vote was enough for an absolute majority of seats, because numerous small parties failed due to the five percent hurdle. A three-fifths majority, which would be necessary in Slovakia for constitutional amendments, but was missed. Many of the previous ruling parties suffered only the Christian Democrats, who were by far of more than 35 percentage points on the SMER - SD second (16 seats), no losses. The first is intervening Party Obyčajní Ludia a nezávislé osobnosti ( Olano ), which had split from the SaS, takes also 16 MPs in third place.

The Hungarian-Slovak party Most -Hid landed with 13 MPs in fourth place. High losses other hand, had the of the " Gorilla Affair " shook Party of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova accept: The SDKU -DS reached only 6.1 % of the vote, which means 11 seats in parliament. As the smallest party drew in quite liberal SaS, 5.9% of the vote and 11 deputies also.

The steered by Ján Slota Slovak National Party (SNS ) had the National Council with only 4.6 % of the vote while leaving the Hungarian party SMK -MKP an entry into parliament again failed. The Start-up 99% - občiansky hlas despite a vigorous campaign not overcome the five percent hurdle.