Slovakia showed a fair dose of apathy in this weekend’s elections to the European Parliament with a turnout of just 13.05%, coming in last place and setting a new record low for the European Union, while the EU average was almost 43.1%.
This was the worst ever turnout for Slovakia, although it was not much better in previous EP elections. There is a general apathy in Slovakia about who represents them so far away in Brussels, as they feel it makes no difference to them, chiefly due to a lack of information. Most people don’t know what their 13 MEPs do, or what they are supposed to be doing.
EU Commissioner for Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration, Maros Sefcovic, who was a candidate of the governing Smer-SD party in the election, lamented the terrible all-time low turnout, blaming it chiefly on political parties and the media for not promoting the importance of the elections enough and for not conveying information about European issues.
Sefcovic referred to it as the Slovak paradox, where people are happy to be a member of the EU, but show a general lack of interest in European affairs.
Along with Smer-SD, which managed to pick up four seats in the MEP (one less than before), seven other parties will join them in Brussels. The KDH and SDKU parties have two seats each, while Ordinary People (OLaNO), SaS, Nova, Most-Hid and SMK parties all have one representative in Brussels. Full results for Slovakia can be viewed here.
The general lack of information on just about everything that transpires in the country never fails to amaze me. Then again when the majority act like mushrooms they deserve to be kept in the dark and fed on bullsh*t!
I wonder who the 87% would have voted far even if they’d had the information. One of the established parties, most of whom have been proved to be corrupt, opportunistic, or piously hypocritical? Or one of the newer parties, who seem to exist either to get their founders on the gravy train (no better explanation exists in many cases), or to reopen petty domestic squabbles?