Democracy Slovak Style

The democracy in Slovakia is all but an illusion. I live in Ružomberok a small town in the heart of Slovakia. Since the communist times peoples attitude to the elections and government hasn’t changed. People still don’t care about the elections. During the commie regime elections were a joke. It did not matter who people voted for, since the system of government was basically the same.

Now, more than 20 years later things changed. Some still don’t care, but some DO, but only about their own wallets. It is typical in Slovakia, that the campaign starts two months prior to the election. And many of the candidates simply did not work for the community prior to the campaign. I can hardly understand how it is possible, that such candidates are elected. Another strange and ominous thing i personally cant abide are the independent candidates with a party support. In Slovakia the party SMER has made use of such candidates and the whole concept was successful. The whole thing is retarded. One of my tutors once asked me a similar black or white question. I answered in gray and he scowled at me and said. A woman is either pregnant or not… There is nothing in-between. Its the same with party support. A candidate is either independent, or party nominated. There is NOTHING in-between. For me all these wannabe in-between candidates ring a bell of warning.

Almost 3 months ago now the campaign began in Ružomberok. There were only two candidates for the Mayor position. Mister Michal Slašťan (Advocating his position) and Ján Pavlík. This campaign would be the roughest in the history of Ružomberok. The campaign really began much sooner for mister Pavlík.

The two candidates have little in common. Their backgrounds are entirely different. Mister Slastan comes out of a christian family. He never worked for the commies and has been mildly persecuted during the commie regime. He has a university degree in Engineering. He pulled himself up and owes a debt to no one. He could be safely called a self-made man. The final point is that he has been involved in local government for 12 years while working for a city-company Ružomberok woods. As a Mayor he worked for the city for 4 years. Never much of a talkie he is more a persona of act. The numbers he put up as a Mayor are absolutely solid.  Mister Ján Pavlík on the other hand has been born in a strongly commie family. As a commie child he has grown up in a very favourable environment. He has a university degree as a teacher. He worked at the town hall for a long time and was rather unsuccessful. He has been a puppet of past regimes, working for the local newspaper and for the town information centre. He helped form the information centre and then led it into collapse after a year. With this record of failure he gradually fades and is not seen working for the city at all during the last 4 years.