IN BRATISLAVA, Nitra, Košice and Trnava, the incumbent regional governors confirmed their positions in the second round of the election on November 23.
Košice regional Governor Zdenko Trebuľa, who received 53.07 percent of the vote against opposition candidate Rudolf Bauer, a former regional governor, was unhappy with the low turnout in the region (12.2 percent), stating that it might be appropriate to make voter attendance in Slovakia mandatory, the TASR newswire reported.
He also complained that he had never seen such a dirty campaign.
His challenger Bauer stated that the votes of ethnic Hungarians were decisive in the run-off, as both Most-Híd and SMK voiced their support for Trebuľa, TASR wrote.
"The ethnic-Hungarian parties have decided. If they had stood along with right-wing parties, the result would have been different," said Bauer, who praised other rightist parties for backing him.
Party of Hungarian Community (SMK) chairman József Berényi stated that it would have been a minor miracle if he had won the governor run-off in Trnava Region against Smer-backed Tibor Mikuš, but he certainly needn't be ashamed of the result.
"More than twice as many voters backed me in the run-off compared to the first round. I received more votes than Mikuš got in the first round," said Berenyi, adding that both candidates attracted around 17,000 additional votes each in the second round.
Berényi stated that the regions are set up in such way that makes it virtually impossible for an ethnic Hungarian to become governor.
"I avoided this argument in the campaign, as I didn't want to see the election go ethnic," said Berényi, as quoted by TASR.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports
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