VZCZCXRO4618
RR RUEHIK
DE RUEHSL #0476/01 3141524
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 101524Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRATISLAVA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0256
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHSL/AMEMBASSY BRATISLAVA 0297

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRATISLAVA 000476 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CE J. MOORE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL LO
SUBJECT: WILL SMER SWEEP THE REGIONAL ELECTIONS? 
 
REF: BRATISLAVA 462 
 
BRATISLAVA 00000476  001.3 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  Summary.  On November 14, Slovak voters will elect regional 
parliaments in each of the eight Higher Territorial Units (VUC) 
and a chairman or `zupan' of each VUC.  These will be the third 
regional elections in Slovakia's sixteen-year history.  If no 
zupan candidate wins in the first round, a second round follows 
on November 28.  According to Slovak pollsters, less than twenty 
percent turnout is expected (in 2005, turnout was eighteen 
percent).  Regional elections do not attract Slovak voters, as 
most have only minimal information about VUC competencies.  Low 
voter turn-out may help parties with historically disciplined 
voters, or new parties with enthusiastic supporters.  Prime 
Minister Fico's SMER is expected to have the most success, which 
will help the party gear up for the June parliamentary 
elections.  Jan Slota's Slovak National Party (SNS) could lose 
ground as compared to the 2005 VUC elections, since SMER has 
excluded it from several regional coalitions, apparently due to 
recent corruption scandals.  End Summary. 
 
Background 
 
¶2.  Regional elections will be held on November 14, 2009.  The 
election campaign period started 17 days prior to elections and 
ends 48 hours before election day.  In a single-round contest, 
voters directly elect the 412 members of the regional 
parliaments, which is one VUC MP for every 12 to 15 thousand 
inhabitants.  The candidates with the highest number of votes 
win positions in the regional parliaments.  In contrast, VUC 
zupans need an absolute majority.  If no one candidate gets an 
absolute majority in the first round, the top two enter a 
run-off.  In the second round a simple majority determines the 
zupan. 
 
¶3.  Party acronyms: 
 
SMER-SD -- Robert Fico's ruling party -- Social Democratic 
`Direction' 
 
SDKU-DS -- Mikulas Dzurinda4s opposition Party of the Democratic 
and Christian Union 
 
HZDS-LS -- Vladimir Meciar4s Party of the Movement for a 
Democracy 
 
KDH -- Jan Figel4s Christian Democratic Movement 
 
SNS -- Jan Slota4s Slovak National Party 
 
SMK -- Pal Csaky4s Hungarian Coalition Party 
 
MOST-HID -- Bela Bugar4s splinter party from SMK (`Bridge') 
 
SaS -- Richard Sulik's Freedom and Solidarity Party 
 
DS -- Democratic Party 
 
OKS -- Civic Conservative Party 
 
SZS -- Slovak Green Party 
 
SF --  Free Forum 
 
Regional Elections a Warm-Up for next June? 
 
¶4.  Clearly, PM Fico's goal is to win the zupan seat in all 
regions, even if that means luring popular candidates away from 
their former parties or discarding troublesome incumbents. 
Comprehensive victory will help further entrench SMER's regional 
support structures, providing money and human resources for next 
June's parliamentary elections.  Despite the traditional lack of 
interest in the zupan races,  zupans have a broad range of 
competencies, that include control of financial resources, 
community services, the transportation sector and real estate 
assets.  They also have access to EU regional development funds. 
 We believe SMER has a good chance to win all eight zupan 
positions, though Banska Bystrica, if infighting between the 
leading candidates continues, and Bratislava, a traditional 
SDKU-opposition stronghold, will present the most difficult 
challenges. 
 
¶5.  Interestingly, in four of the eight races, SMER has formed 
coalitions with HzDS for the zupan race and excluded SNS.  Some 
believe that this could be a harbinger of  coalition changes to 
come, as SNS has lately come under fire for a series of 
corruption scandals (reftel).  Alternatively, one could view 
Fico's strategy as a way of co-opting HzDS's long-standing 
regional support structures, while HzDS gradually fades into 
oblivion.  In the latest political preference poll, released by 
the MVK agency on November 3, SMER won a whopping 42 percent of 
 
BRATISLAVA 00000476  002.3 OF 003 
 
 
the vote.  SDKU, its closest competition, earned a distant 12 
percent.  Six additional parties: KDH, SMK, MOST, HzDS, SNS, and 
SaS, all earned between 5 and 10 percent of the electorate. 
However, HzDS, SMK, MOST, and SaS are all within one percent of 
the 5 percent threshold, which is a precarious position. 
 
Coalitions : Primarily SMER-HZDS (-SNS) Against SDKU-KDH 
 
¶6.  Fifty-six candidates are running for the eight VUC zupan 
slots.  In contrast to previous regional elections, which were 
characterized by unconventional coalitions consisting of both 
opposition and government candidates, this year the slates are 
divided into national level coalition and opposition camps in 
seven of the eight regions.  The exception is Nitra, where 
similarly to 2005, a Slovak coalition of both opposition and 
coalition parties has been established to prevent the ethnic 
Hungarian SMK from winning a majority in the VUC parliament. 
According to Grisa Meseznikov, a prominent political analyst and 
Director of the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), current 
coalitions reflect both party ideology and the state of 
coalition cooperation. 
 
¶7.  Bratislava VUC has ten zupan candidates.  Vladimir Bajan, 
the incumbent, is running as an independent with the support of 
SMER, HZDS, Greens-SZS, and HZD.  He is followed by opposition 
candidate and SDKU MP, Pavol Freso (supported by SDKU, KDH, OKS, 
SaS) and independent Branislav Zahradnik, the current head of 
the Bratislava transportation company.  Robert Beno, former 
Markiza moderator, is running for the MOST-HID party and 
Jaroslav Paska, former defense minister, is up for SNS. 
 
¶8.  Banska Bystrica VUC has nine zupan candidates.  Vladimir 
Manka, a current MEP, is supported by SMER and HzDS, and leads 
the polls.  Incumbent zupan Milan Murgas was a SMER nominee last 
election but has had such dismal performance that SMER decided 
not to renominate him.  Murgas decided to run for reelection as 
an independent, and was subsequently expelled from the party. 
Manka and Murgas have been engaging in mutual smear campaigns, 
potentially paving the way for Jozef Mikus, the candidate 
representing the opposition SDKU, KDH, OKS, KDS and SaS, to make 
it to the second round. 
 
¶9.  Kosice VUC has eight zupan candidates.  Out of them, only 
two are relevant players: Zdenko Trebula, the incumbent and 
overwhelming favorite, is supported by SMER, MOST, SMK, HZD, and 
SF.  Jan Suli, presently a regional councilman, is running for 
the opposition coalition of SDKU, KDH, KDS, SaS, OKS and DS. 
 
¶10.  Trencin VUC has six zupan candidates.  The strongest are 
current chairman Pavol Sedlacek supported by SMER, HZDS, and 
SNS, and Martin Fedor, former defense minister, running on a 
SDKU-KDH coalition slate.  The former mayor and former SDKU MP 
Juraj Liska is running as independent. 
 
¶11.  Trnava VUC has four candidates registered for zupan.  Tibor 
Mikus, the incumbent, is supported by SMER, SNS, HZD and SZS. 
Mikus, a former deputy chairman of HzDS (who quit the party two 
years ago) and former director of the nuclear plant at Jaslovske 
Bohunice during Meciar's government, is so confident he will win 
based on his performance over the last term that he does not 
need to campaign.  The other three candidates are former 
Agriculture Minister Miroslav Jurena for HZDS, Gabor Gal for 
MOST-Hid, and Gabriel Pavelek for KDH-SDKU.   Mikus is the 
target of new campaign ads, that accuse him of concluding 
`secret agreements' with members of SMK.   Jurena was 
immediately suspected of being behind the ads, which he denies. 
 
¶12.  Zilina VUC has four running candidates for zupan, the 
strongest one being Juraj Blanar, the incumbent, who is 
supported by a coalition of SMER, HZDS, and SNS.  His rival 
Pavel Pavlasek runs for opposition coalition made of KDH, SDKU, 
DS, and OKS. 
 
¶13.  Presov VUC (most populous with 768,719 inhabitants) has ten 
zupan candidates, of which three are relevant: Peter Chudik, the 
incumbent and favorite is supported by SMER and HZDS; Jan 
Hudacky for KDH, SDKU, SaS, and Pavel Hagyari, the mayor of 
Presov supported by a coalition of small regional parties. 
 
The Exception 
 
¶14.  Nitra VUC has five zupan candidates. The strongest, Milan 
Belica, the current zupan, is supported by the all-Slovak 
coalition made of SMER, SDKU, KDH, SNS, who have put aside their 
differences to eliminate any chance of an ethnic Hungarian 
zupan.  SMK nominee for zupan, Agnes Biro, lamented the 
political quarantine in which SMK finds itself in Nitra.  She 
fears that increasingly nationalist rhetoric in the campaign 
will further impede cross-border cooperation with Hungary.  Biro 
 
BRATISLAVA 00000476  003.3 OF 003 
 
 
acknowledged that SMK's deputy zupan in Nitra from 1995-2000 was 
widely viewed as corrupt, but thought that his misdeeds should 
no longer prevent SMK's success in regional structures. 
Currently, of the 52 regional parliamentarians in Nitra, 17 are 
members of SMK. 
 
Comment 
 
¶15.  Many observers cite extremely low turnout (some expect as 
low as 12 percent) and general lack of interest in regional 
government as reasons that regional elections should not be used 
to predict next June's national elections.  While true, we 
believe it will be most interesting to watch how Fico and SMER 
play smaller would-be coalition members off of one another. 
This is certainly the case with SNS, HzDS, and both of the 
Hungarian parties. 
EDDINS