A (baloldali) populizmus diadalmenete Szlovákiában. A Smer története
Triumphal March of (Leftist) Populism in Slovakia. History of the Smer

Summary/Abstract: The Smer was established in the autumn of 1999. It started as a one-man and a single maxim party. Its founder was the left-wing politician Robert Fico. Its rapidly growing popularity can be attributed to the fact that it has offered an alternative to the government coalition and the opposition alike. By means of continually criticising the government coalitions, which introduced the reform- and privatisation processes, with the promise to implement leftist and social measures, he gained the support of a large segment of the electorate. Furthermore, he also promised to reinstate the strategic role of the state, particularly in the sphere of energy carriers and thus attracted influential politicians and major entrepreneurs into his party. He only revealed the party’s precise objectives in the winter of 2001: it became a third-alternative social democratic party in the style of the British L abour Party. Between 2003 and 2006, as Chairman of the Smer, R. Fico integrated the splintered left-wing parties into his own party and won the June 2006 elections as a result. He formed a government coalition with two parties (Slovak N ational Party and the Movement for a D emocratic Slovakia), which are considered by the international community as unreliable. However, more than half of the population is persistently satisfied with the “organic” coalition and Prime Minister R Fico alike.

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