THE LEVEL of democracy in Slovakia during the second half of 2011 stayed at the same level as in the previous six months, when it received a mark of 2.6, according to the Barometer survey conducted out by the Institute of Public Affairs (IVO). Although the state of democracy was unimproved, the representatives of the think tank said that the outcome still represented Slovakia’s highest score since 2008, the SITA newswire reported.
“Some positive trends that we saw after the 2010 elections were stopped,” said IVO’s Grigorij Mesežnikov, as quoted by SITA, adding that the fall of the government led some measures which might have improved the current situation in Slovakia not to be realised.
The most criticised measure passed by the government was an amendment to the constitution which allowed the president to appoint the current interim government.
“We consider the way [the constitution] was amended to have been extremely inappropriate for a consolidated democracy, as the amendment was passed within several hours, using a fast-tracked legislative process,” explained Mesežnikov, as quoted by SITA.
He added that the level of democracy in Slovakia was generally maintained due to the fact that there was no move towards authoritarianism and that opposition parties were not routinely marginalised.
