In spite of scepticism about the main political parties and worries about the state of law, Slovaks are optimistic regarding their abilities to carry out progressive changes, indicate the results of the Open Society Foundation's survey. It was carried out in central and eastern Europe on the topic of freedoms obtained in 1989, after the fall of the totalitarian, Soviet-led socialist regime. The survey also indicates differences between generations, with the youth taking part in the civic activities and hoping for an improvement in society despite significant worries about the future of democracy, suspicions about the government and widespread mistrust in the media.
61% of Slovak respondents of the survey believe that democracy is in danger - more than in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland (58 to 51%). One third of Slovaks share the opinion that elections in the country are not free and just. On the contrary in Bulgaria, almost two thirds are of this opinion and in Hungary and Romania it is a little over half.
Moreover, 60% of Slovaks do not trust the regular media and 72% of people in the country do not consider information provided by the government to be trustworthy. 58% of Slovaks think that freedom of speech is in danger and 70% of people in Slovakia believe that the state of law is weakened. 73% of Slovaks believe that academic institutions should be free to criticize the government. Nevertheless, a large portion of citizens believe that today, people have more options to influence political events in the country than 30 years ago.
The survey was carried out in seven countries - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia on the sample of 12,537 respondents by YouGov, a member of the British Polling Council.
