Smer and Most Híd to endorse civic candidate for Banská Bystrica region governor

The Smer-SD party will endorse Ján Lunter in his bid for the post of governor of the Banská Bystrica region in the regional elections this autumn. Smer vice-chairman Peter Pellegrini said that the party's decision comes on the back of his public support in opinion polls, among others. The Smer vice-chair said that Lunter was well-placed to unseat the incumbent governor Marian Kotleba, who heads the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia. "The vote in the Banská Bystrica region must not devolve into the usual kind of battle between standard political parties. No matter how good our candidate was, no good would come of it given the situation in the region. The elections must be marked by a struggle in which good is pitted against evil, and values and traditions are pitted against those who trample them," said Pellegrini. Smer will support Lunter even if Kotleba does not enter the contest after all. The incumbent regional governor is expected to reveal his decision to join or opt out of the race in the next few days. Ján Lunter, the self-made owner of a family business producing health food, is running as a civic candidate. However, he has reportedly welcomed Smer's support. A Focus agency poll published on 22^nd August showed that Lunter would have won the regional governor election in the Banská Bystrica region by a nose ahead of Kotleba had the vote taken place in early August. Following the chief governing coalition party Smer-SD, another coalition party, Most-Híd, has lent its support to independent candidate Ján Lunter. "We hadn't the ambition to put forward our own candidate; instead, our intention was to support Marian Kotleba's strongest democratic rival," Most-Hid regional chairman Laszlo Nagy told the TASR press agency. The elections to the regional governments will be held on 4^th November.