Smer leader Robert Fico, as portrayed on February 16, 2023. (source: SITA)
Almost half of all searches in Slovakia last week about politicians were about Smer party chief Robert Fico, making him the most searched Slovak politician by a wide margin.
Sme Rodina head Boris Kollár came second with 16 percent, closely followed by the head of the far-right Republika party Milan Uhrík with 15 percent and Progresívne Slovensko (PS) leader Michal Šimečka with 13 percent, according to Google data reported by the Aktuality news website.
Smer was the most googled party as well with 46 percent of all searches on Slovak political parties. Meanwhile, there was a huge rise in specific phrases searched related to the party - "smer press conference today" saw a 350 percent increase, "robert kalinak smer" registered a 250 percent increase, and there was a 150 percent increase in "we support smer" searches.
Among the most popular searches related to Robert Fico, the most searched terms were "fico pellegrini" (the latter is the former Smer PM and now head of the Hlas opposition party), "youtube press conference fico", "robert fico wife" and "stop fico".
The second most googled party was Progresívne Slovensko, accounting for 24 percent of searches. Searches for terms such as "progresivne slovensko contact", "progresivne slovensko election committee", "progresivne slovensko candidate list" and "ps election programme" saw increases of 300, 200, 150, and 100 percent, respectively.
Other common searches among Slovaks included questions in when the elections are being held, how to choose a party to vote for, what percentages would be needed by various parties to form a government, and how the election works.
