Sociologist Pavel Haulík told the TASR newswire on November 15 that he was quite surprised that the regions most affected by high unemployment rates saw the highest turnout in the regional (VÚC) elections the day earlier, as he expected the opposite results.
Still and all, voter turnout was low (22.9 percent) – but that was slightly higher than four years ago (18 percent), he pointed out. "It has held true that VÚCs don't belong among the representative bodies that attract voters," Haulík says, adding that the problem may also lie in the powers delegated to the VÚCs.
According to him, the slight rise in the turnout may be interpreted as representing “certain expectations or maybe positive changes, but the increase wasn't so (extensive) that it could point to a trend”. He tends to think that “the crisis of voting that we have been observing in Slovakia over the long term has already bottomed.” TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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