Slovakia is voting in nationwide municipal and regional elections on Saturday, 24 October, providing the first major electoral test of Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government since a series of parliamentary disputes weakened his governing coalition.
According to figures released by Slovakia’s national news agency, almost 4.41 million people are eligible to vote across 2,926 municipalities, towns and city districts. Polling stations opened at 7am and will close at 8pm local time.
Voters are choosing mayors, municipal councillors, governors and representatives of Slovakia’s eight self-governing regions. In Bratislava and Košice, they are also electing district mayors and councils.
Although the elections concern local administration, their political significance extends beyond municipal government. They offer an indication of the relative strength of Fico’s governing Smer-SD party and the opposition Progressive Slovakia movement ahead of parliamentary elections due by September 2027.
One of the most closely watched contests is in Bratislava, where incumbent mayor Matúš Vallo is seeking another term against Transport Minister Jozef Ráž, who is standing as an independent candidate.
Vallo is supported by an alliance comprising Team Bratislava, Progressive Slovakia, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and the Democrats. Ráž, although formally independent, is a minister in Fico’s government.
The contest has acquired a distinctly national character. Vallo and Bratislava regional governor Juraj Droba have campaigned against extending Smer’s influence over the capital and its regional administration.
Bratislava is also politically significant because its electorate has traditionally provided substantial support for liberal and pro-European parties, in contrast to the stronger position enjoyed by Smer in parts of rural Slovakia.
The latest national opinion surveys suggest a closely divided electorate.
An Ipsos survey conducted between 15 and 19 October placed Progressive Slovakia first with 18.6 per cent, marginally ahead of Smer-SD on 18.4 per cent. The difference was statistically insignificant.
The nationalist Republika party ranked third on 10.8 per cent, while Fico’s coalition partner Hlas-SD attracted 6.6 per cent. The Slovak National Party (SNS), another governing partner, stood below the parliamentary threshold.
The figures suggest that Fico could struggle to reproduce his present parliamentary majority. However, the opposition is also divided, and current projections do not establish a straightforward route to an alternative governing coalition.
The immediate challenge for Fico is maintaining sufficient parliamentary support to govern until the scheduled election.
As EU Today reported in September, parliament voted to remove Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba after SNS deputies joined the opposition, exposing divisions within the governing alliance.
Those tensions have continued to affect parliamentary business. On 14 October, the government secured approval for its 2027 budget by just 76 votes in the 150-member National Council, the minimum required for an absolute majority.
The budget increases the projected deficit to 4.94 per cent of GDP, despite warnings from Slovakia’s fiscal watchdog about rising public debt. Fico has defended the spending plans as necessary to protect households, pensions and public services.
The elections are also taking place against a widening disagreement between Fico’s government and much of the European Union over Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Since returning to office in 2023, Fico has ended government-funded military assistance to Kyiv, challenged EU sanctions on Moscow and repeatedly called for negotiations with Russia. Commercial Slovak arms exports to Ukraine have nevertheless continued.
His position has extended to NATO’s collective defence commitments. In September, Fico questioned the prospect of Slovakia becoming involved in a military conflict under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Article 5, however, requires member states to assist an ally subjected to armed attack, while allowing each government to determine the measures it considers necessary. It does not automatically require every member to deploy combat troops.
The latest development concerns Slovakia’s decision to resume formal bilateral consultations with Moscow.
On Monday, 26 October, two days after the elections, Slovak and Russian officials are scheduled to meet in Moscow for discussions covering energy, nuclear cooperation, oil and gas supplies and other economic sectors.
It will be the first meeting of the bilateral intergovernmental commission since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Bratislava maintains that dialogue with Russia is compatible with Slovakia’s EU and NATO obligations. The initiative nevertheless reinforces Fico’s different approach to Moscow at a time when the EU is seeking to reduce Russian energy imports.
Saturday’s vote will not directly determine whether Fico remains prime minister. Local contests involve independent candidates, regional alliances and municipal priorities that do not necessarily correspond to national party preferences.
Nevertheless, results in Bratislava, Košice and the country’s eight regions will provide evidence of the government’s ability to mobilise supporters and the opposition’s capacity to turn favourable opinion polls into electoral victories.
No official exit polls are planned. The Slovak Statistical Office will publish results progressively after polling stations close, with counting expected to continue overnight into Sunday, 25 October.
For Fico, the results will offer an indication of whether his coalition can recover political ground before the next parliamentary election or whether its internal divisions are beginning to translate into losses at the ballot box.
The European Commission is checking whether laws Ukraine’s parliament passed last week earn it a €3.7 billion ($4.3 billion) EU payment, spokesperson Balázs Ujvári told reporters in Brussels on 19 October. He also said Ukraine’s 2027 funding gap stands at about €70 billion, and that the EU “cannot do this all alone.” How Ukraine pays for Russia’s war next year now depends on reforms in Kyiv and on money from Europe and beyond.
Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s power grid and cities, and Kyiv already faces a hole in next year’s war budget before any new military spending. Foreign money keeps salaries, pensions, and repairs flowing while Ukraine spends its own revenue on defense. So each delayed payment is felt at home while Russia hits the energy system again.
The payment is the second tranche of the EU’s macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, and each one depends on reforms, Ujvári said at the Commission’s midday briefing.
“We saw that last week some important laws were adopted in the Rada, and we are in the process of analyzing these laws and we will formulate our assessment thereafter,” he said.
On its third attempt, parliament passed a law on 15 October ending the VAT exemption for foreign parcels worth up to €150 from 1 July 2027, and making online marketplaces collect the tax. The Commission had warned the law was one of 12 conditions for the tranche. Fewer than 1% of the 75 million parcels Ukrainians receive each year were taxed, and lawmakers had rejected the measure twice despite IMF pressure.
About €30 billion is in the pipeline for Ukraine this year, mostly under the EU’s €90 billion support loan, if reforms continue, Ujvári said.
Current pledges leave a gap of about €70 billion for 2027, Ujvári said, even counting the €45 billion ($52 billion) the EU has set aside for next year and some partners’ commitments.
“We cannot do this all alone. Therefore, our partners in general must step up,” he said. “They have to come forward with pledges, and they have to deliver on those commitments.”
On 16 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked EU leaders for at least €70 billion more for 2027. They tasked the Commission with a proposal but set no deadline. Asked whether it would revisit using frozen Russian assets, Ujvári said it was “a little bit early” to discuss options in that detail. New EU borrowing has also grown costlier: 10-year rates rose from 3.2% to just above 4% in six months, he said.
The €90 billion loan was designed on the assumption that the war would end in 2026. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said Slovakia and Hungary would opt out of new aid but would not block others.
Slovak prime minister Robert Fico appears to have become Russia’s most prominent ally in the European Union, following the demise of Hungary’s pro-Kremlin leader.
Juraj Blanár, Slovakia’s foreign minister, announced controversial plans to revive a joint committee with Russia back in August – just a day before the anniversary of the Soviets occupying Czechoslovakia in 1968.
His announcement also came before Fico headed off to meet his counterparts at a summit in Brussels on Thursday (15 October).
And “so that there are no surprises, on the 25th [of October] there will … be a meeting of the joint economic commission with the Russian Federation,” Fico told the European affairs committee in Slovakia’s parliament on Wednesday.
The central European leader announced the closer ties with his aggressive neighbour immediately after planning a trip to Lviv in Ukraine early next month.
But if Fico does actually go to Lviv, just over the border from Poland, it would be the deepest he has travelled in the war-torn country so far.
And while he has not visited Kyiv in three years since returning to power, Fico has made plenty of time to go to Moscow during this time.
Many factors point to Slovakia now openly supporting the Kremlin, even as Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians intensify, killing dozens of people.
The Institute for European Security Studies (IESS), a Kyiv-based think tank, noted, in its analysis, that a recent statement by Slovak defence minister Robert Kaliňák did not consider Russia a threat, despite Russian intelligence services having been linked to attacks in Slovakia including, potentially, a drone attack on a manufacturer near Prešov.
The IESS also highlighted the renewed Slovak-Russian cooperation at the level of military attachés, with two Slovak military personnel sent to the Russian capital while a Russian officer went to Bratislava.
This swap of soldiers was promised by Fico to Putin when they met in the Kremlin on 9 May.
And to make matters worse, a Russian military attaché was captured on video handing cash to an associate of the Slovak fake news site Hlavné správy.
The Ukraine think-tank warned that Slovakia’s magnetism towards Russia should not be ignored.
“In the end, by lowering Nato’s guard and reopening the doors to Russian intelligence, Slovakia is doing exactly what Moscow needs: disabling the West’s defences from the inside out,” it said.
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