national populism and slovak – hungarian relations in - MEK

Most Frequent Stereotypes Concerning Slovak–Hungarian Relations...nationwide ‘Slovak’ party running in the 2006 elections mentioned tacklingthe issue of national minorities in its election program and none of themplaced persons of Hungarian or other non-Slovak origin on its candidates’list. 8 In this sense, all nationwide Slovak parties are based on the ethnicprinciple; SMK–MKP is also a nationwide party as its program focuses onall spheres of governance and social development.Fourthly, there is nothing unnatural about the fact that the principal targetgroup of SMK–MKP consists of voters of Hungarian origin, personswith Hungarian ethnic identity or Hungarian cultural and language ties. Thiscategory of voters is an equally integral constituent of the Slovakian societyas any other category of voters. The prejudice that ethnic Hungarianvoters are a less legitimate target group than Roman Catholics (or Christiansin general), workers, communists, Slovaks or pensioners ensues from misunderstandingof the essence of the civic principle. If we accepted effortsto edge out SMK–MKP to the political spectrum’s margin on grounds thatits name includes the word ‘Hungarian’ and therefore it does not appeal toall citizens of Slovakia, we would have to reproach other parties for thesame reasons: the Christian Democratic Movement for appealing solely toChristians, the Association of Slovak Workers for representing exclusivelyworkers, the Communist Party of Slovakia for turning only to communists,the Slovak National Party for caring merely about Slovaks, etc. The solefact that a given party focuses primarily on this or that target group doesnot prima facie define it or disqualify in terms of sharing fundamental democraticvalues.Last but not least, ethnic parties exist in all European countries that areethnically structured, including Belgium, Spain, Ireland or Romania. Thesituation in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989evolved according to the same pattern. In Slovakia, the process of socialchanges immediately led to emergence of specific (ethnic-national) politicalformations, namely the Public against Violence and the ChristianDemocratic Movement: no real federally organised (“Czecho-Slovak”) politicalparty or movement was established after 1989. But that was only naturalin that stage of democratic development.In order to overcome formal ethnic cleavages in party politics, the countryapparently needs to stay on the path toward democracy for much longer.Perhaps the only multiethnic European country where individual languagecommunities are not represented by respective ethnic parties is Switzerland,which is a state that has existed for over 700 years, last 150 of which therewas a relatively democratic regime in place. The issue of language rightsor the status of individual language communities was resolved a long timeNational Populism and Slovak – Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006 – 2009. Forum Minority Research Institute Šamorín – Somorja, 2009297