With the recent trend of 'non-political politics' and independent candidates, it appears that Slovaks in the upcoming elections would prefer a "bear from the mountains to a politician", a situation that might play into the hands of candidates without a political background.
In fact, they frequently are not so much interested in public service as in their own businesses, political analyst Ján Baránek said on a talk show tablet.tv this week. This upcoming local elections (taking place on November 15) has also seen an unusually high number of candidates abandoning the race in favour of their stronger rivals. “The main reason is that the centre-right spectrum has never been as fragmented as it is now”, said sociologist Olga Gyárfášová. This has resulted in a higher number of candidates, who then under growing political pressure are withdrawing their bids in order to join forces against the leftist Smer-SD. Incumbent Bratislava mayor Milan Ftáčnik (independent with the support of Smer-SD) has criticised the trend, claiming that local politics is thus being infected with national politics, while it should primarily be about local personalities. His claims were countered however by Ján Baránek: “Ftáčnik’s claim holds true only for smaller municipalities. It's always a political fight in large cities and towns. By the way, I'm curious how parties will declare their victory, if one candidate is being backed by as many as eight parties - whether each of the parties will claim one eighth of the victory, or each party will claim to be the winner as was the case in [last year's] regional elections. It's sometimes funny to watch how they're able to distribute success”, said Baránek.
