The early elections in March 2012 will cost Slovakia around EUR 10.5 million to organise, but the real bill comes from the extra money that political parties will see for gaining their part of the electorate.
Political parties must be rubbing their hands at the thought of the early elections as they will share up almost EUR 30 million among themselves, less than two years since they last cashed in EUR 24 million from the previous elections.
Parties receive a subsidy for each vote they get, which means the party with the strongest support, Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party, could rake in around EUR 13 million, according to calculations of daily Hospodarske Noviny based on a recent poll of the MVK agency.
After the last elections the Smer-SD party proposed that parties surrender a quarter of the contributions for votes to flood relief as the country was suffering massive widespread flooding at the time, with damages calculated at around a quarter of a billion euro. Eventually around EUR 4 million was collected from the parties.
This time round nobody is rushing forward with suggestions. Nobody but independent MP Igor Matovic, at least, who has called on political parties to use the money they got from the elections to cover the cost of the early elections themselves. Needless to say, this idea did not meet with much support.