SK turnout in EP elections could be one of the lowest
Otto Mann
lowest
7 Jun 2009
Flash News
Voter-turnout in Slovakia’s elections for the European Parliament held
on June 6 was about 19 percent, based on unofficial results. On
Sunday’s edition of the political talk show “O 5 Minút 12” broadcast
by the public service channel Slovak Television (STV), Ivan Štefunko,
an analyst with the Euractiv.sk portal, said that turnout in Slovakia
was likely to be one of the lowest across the 27-nation European
community.
Štefunko said this low turnout is a result of the failure of top
Slovak politicians to attract the electorate through regular
presentation and discussion of European views and issues. Over the
past five years, he said, Slovak politicians have almost not mentioned
the European Union among their issues of political discourse.
Štefunko is also of the opinion that elected officials and party
representatives from Slovakia’s political establishment did little
this year to encourage the electorate to participate in the 2009 EP
balloting. Štefunko said this can be partially ascribed to the fact
that Slovakia is still a young member of the EU.
The director of the EP Information Office in Slovakia, Robert Hajšel,
attributes voters’ apathy and their limited interest in European
public affairs with each country’s domestic political scene. He
pointed out that most other EU member states failed to halt the
shrinking interest in the EP elections this year while in Slovakia, if
unofficial results are confirmed, turnout improved by about two
percentage points compared with five years ago.
"Given our expectations, this outcome is better than projections,"
Hajšel concluded.
The arrangement of mandates in the European Parliament does not say
much about the real balance of power and political influence in
Slovakia, according to political analyst Grigorij Mesežnikov, but
rather about the ability of individual parties to mobilise voters.
Mesežnikov suggested that due to the low turnout the results are not
representative enough to draw conclusions about the distribution of
domestic political power. However, Mesežnikov praised the Sloboda a
solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity) party which this year got very
close to making it to the EP. He said that could be a promising
development.
Sociologist Pavel Haulík sees low interest by Slovakia’s political
parties themselves as the main reason for the low voter turnout.
Verbally the parties support the elections, but they did not do enough
to lure voters to the polls, he said.
The election campaign was not motivating, Haulík said. He certainly
does not view the weather or voters’ leisure activities as the main
reason for the low turnout, as the numbers in 2004 and this year are
too similar.
Haulík said that the parties even did not even bother to make an
effort to find out which individuals might have a chance to perform
better on their candidate lists. He added that some names on the lists
were totally unknown to voters.
“If a voter sees someone he or she doesn’t know and the information
only is that he is 26 years old and works as an assistant, the voter
might decide not to vote at all,” Haulík concluded.