If there is one country in Europe where you would expect Nazi-signalling Nats to have a chance, it is Slovakia, which has just had an election. Even better, the election was held in the wake of a serious corruption scandal by the Left-wing government that actually involved the murder of a journalist and his girlfriend.
So, how did the Kotlebists (aka People's Party "Our Slovakia") do in the recent elections?
For those who don't know -- and why should you Slovakian politics is pretty obscure -- the Kotlebists are a group inspired by a bunch of Nazi collaborators in WWII who like to march around in fashy gear.
Greg Johnson cummies in 3...2...1... |
This isn't a deal breaker in itself, as the boy scouts do something similar, and you could even make the case that the Kotlebists are "Christian-inspired social conservatives" and "fine, upstanding Slovak nationalists," etc., but the truth is the party has a darker side, and, more importantly, that has not been resonating with voters.
In the 2016 election the party finally broke into Parliament when it upped its support from 1.58% in 2012 to 8.04%. But this time around the party failed to make any progress, in fact falling back to 6.5% according to an exit poll.
The party in 7th place |
The party doing best is the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities Party, which is described as centre-right and populist. It shot up from 11% to 25.8%!!!
This shows you that Nazi-tinged nationalism, even in the most Nazi-friendly parts or Europe, is a no-hoper. Instead what voters want is morally-defensible nationalism.
The Kotlebists have really shot themselves in the foot. Leader Marian Kotleba has associated his party with Naziism in a number of pointlessly foolish ways. For example, two years ago he was on hate speech charges for this:
On July 26, a prosecutor from the Special Prosecutor’s Office (ÚŠP) pressed charges against the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) leader Marian Kotleba for demonstrating sympathy for a movement directed at suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Kotleba now faces a sentence of up to eight years in prison. This goes back to the donations that Kotleba made last year, in the form of vouchers worth €1,488, to three families at an event marking the founding of the (Nazi-Germany inclined) wartime Slovak state in Banská Bystrica, the Sme daily wrote on July 28.
I guess he got off with a slap on the wrist, and, wow, pretty weird that people can be sent to jail for that. But, along with the Nazi-style uniforms, it demonstrates the kind of optics Kotleba is promoting, which may be fine if you're Greg Johnson having a wank, but clearly it has a limited appeal for Slovakian voters and is therefore a pointless diversion and division in the nationalist vote.
More on the elections from Renaissance Horizon:
More on the elections from Renaissance Horizon:
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