On Saturday, Slovaks voted in municipal elections for the mayors and local and municipal council members. These elections have brought many surprising changes to some of the Slovak cities, first be it the victories of independent candidates for mayors, which were successful in 38% of places. The nominees of the ruling coalition party SMER-SD were successful in 29% of the municipalities. The overall election turnout was 48.34%.
The most surprising election outcome is in the capital Bratislava, where the new mayor is going to be Ivo Nesrovnal, who ran for this position as an independent candidate. In the pre-election polls, he would place third, behind the current mayor Milan Ftáčnik, and the right wing parties’ nominee Milan Kňažko. In Košice, the second largest Slovak city, Richard Raši, from the SMER-SD party has defended his position and was re-elected.
