Slovak Republic
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Youth Empowerment Project For the Institute for Go-Governance, Vienna www.go-governance.com Slovak Republic By Maros Lauer, Assistant Go-Governance, Summer 2014 Project Leader and Series Editor Dr Melanie Sully, [email protected] 1 Content 1. Definition of the term 2. Young members of representative bodies 2.1. National Council of the Slovak Republic 2.2. European parliament members and candidates 2.3. Age structure of self-governing regions members and candidates 2.4. The elections to the municipality self-government bodies 2.5. Presidential elections 3. Government and current and past young ministers 4. Election turnout 5. Youth organizations 5.1. Political parties youth organizations 5.2. Youth projects and fora 6. Selection process of the candidates 7. Generation gap or inter-generation projects 2 Definition of the Term „Youth“ For the purpose of this project I chose the definiton of young people to be those in the population under 35. My decision was influenced by the region I was given to examine. The minimum age to become a parliament member is 21, while for the president of a self-governing region it is 25. I will examine the age distribution among parliament members later, but concerning the age limit for young people I should like at the outset to state one important fact - only one MP is younger than 30 years (he is 28). In addition most of the political organizations for youth in Slovakia have an age limit of 35 (the Young liberals have 33).1 There are in Slovakia 509598 inhabitants under 35 out of 5 410 836 in 2012, that is 9.45 of the total population.2 1http://www.novageneracia.sk/statut-ng/, http://www.kdms.sk/node/223, http://odm.sk/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/rokovaci.pdf, http://www.mladiliberali.sk/stanovy.pdf 2Population pyramides of the SR, 1945- 2012. Availableonline: http://portal.statistics.sk/showdoc.do?docid=38647 3 Young members of Representative Bodies National Council of the Slovak Republic According to the Act No. 333/2004 on Elections to the National Council of the Slovak Republic, paragraph 3, the candidate must be on the day of election at least 21 years old and have a permanent address in Slovakia and be a Slovak citizen .According to paragraphs 34 and 35, any Slovak citizen can send their votes via post, regardless of permanent adress or presence in the country on the day of elections. The voting age is 18, and this is the case for 3 other elections in Slovakia. There are 9 parliament members under 35 years.4 The youngest one is 28 elected as a candidate of the biggest party in the Slovakian parliament, (social democrat).5 The Social Democratic Party has 6 MPs younger than 35, however it has more than 50% of the total seats in parliament. The other 3 MPs younger than 35, all come from liberal parties (SaS - Freedom and Solidarity and Oľano - Odrinary people). The other parties, which could be marked as conservative, with 40 seats of 150 have no MPs younger 35 years. It´s noteworthy that all of them are men and there is no woman among MPs under 35. Distribution of the seats among the political parties after the 2012 elections. Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/nrsr/nrsr2012/graf/graf2.jsp@lang=en.htm List of the names of the political parties elected in last elections with their abbreviations and number of seats (English translation in brackets): Smer - SociálnaDemokracia "SMER - SD" (Direction – Social Democracy) - 83 seats 3http://www.minv.sk/?volby-nrsr&subor=28282 4https://www.nrsr.sk/web/default.aspx?SectionId=60 5https://www.nrsr.sk/web/Default.aspx?sid=poslanci/poslanec&PoslanecID=869&CisObdobia=6 4 Kresťanskodemokratickéhnutie "KDH" (Christian Democratic Party) - 16 seats OBYČAJNÍĽUDIA a nezávisléosobnost "OĽaNO" (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) - 16 seats "MOST - HÍD" (the Bridge) - 13 seats Slovenskádemokratická a kresťanskáúnia – Demokratickástrana "SDKÚ - DS" (Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party) - 11 seats Sloboda a Solidarita "SaS" (Freedom and Solidarity) - 11seats In the following tables we can see age the structure of the candidates to National Council in last 3 elections, as well as average age of candidate for both genders. 2006 Elections Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2006. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/nrsr/nrsr2006/angl/info/vek_mz.jsp.htm 5 The Party with the highest average age of the candidate was ASV - Agrárna strana vidieka (Agrarian country party) with 0,13% of valid votes. The Party with the lowest average age of candidate was SDĽ - Strana demokratickej ľavice (Left demokrats party) with 0,12% of valid votes 2010 Elections Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2010. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/nrsr/nrsr2010/info/vekkand.jsp@lang=en.htm The Party with the lowest average age of candidate was EDS - EURÓPSKA DEMOKRATICKÁ STRANA (European demokratic party) with 0,40% of valid votes The Party with the highest average age of candidate was KSS - Komunistická strana Slovenska (Communist party of Slovakia) - 0,82% of valid votes 6 2012 Elections Source:Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2012. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/nrsr/nrsr2012/info/vekkand.jsp@lang=en.htm From the elected parties, the lowest average age of a candidate was from the SaS party - Sloboda a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity) - 5,88% of valid votes The highest average age for candidate came from the SMER - SD party (Social democracy)- 44,41% of valid votes European parliament members and candidates According to the Act No. 331/2003 on European Parliament Elections, paragraph 3, the candidate must be at least 21on the day of election and should have a permanent address in Slovakia.6 In 2004 elections to EP the youngest representative elected was Monika Flašíková Beňová.7 She was 35 years old at that time and the second youngest elected representative was 43, while the average age of elected representatives was 50. In 2009 elections to the European parliament the youngest elected candidate was just 26 years old.8 She was also the only elected MP under 35. However the average age of candidates rose to 53. 6http://www.minv.sk/?volby-ep&subor=33130 7http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/sk/23868/MONIKA_FLASIKOVA+BENOVA_home.html 7 In the last EP elections the youngest elected candidate was 40.9 The average age remained the same as in previous elections - 53 years. In all of the elections the youngest candidate was a woman and since 2004 the average age of elected MPs has increased to 53 from 50 higher than for the national parliament. Age structure of self-governing regions members and candidates The Slovak Republic is divided into 8 self-governing regions. Each of them has its own parliament with directly elected members. The president of each region is elected during the same elections, but separately from other representatives. According to paragraph 3, Act No. 303/2001 on Elections to the Bodies of Self-governing Regions and on Amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure a candidate for the regional parliament must be at least 18 years old on the day of election, while according to paragraph 4 the candidate for president of the self governing region must be at least 25.10 This law applies to all of the regions. All regions vote on the same day. Self-governing regions of the Slovak Republic Source: Road Databank of Slovakia. Available online: http://www.cdb.sk/sk/Vystupy-CDB/Mapy- cestnej-siete-SR/Mapy-krajov.alej 8http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/cs/96653/mep_home.html 9http://www.nrsr.sk/web/Default.aspx?sid=poslanci/poslanec&PoslanecID=776 10http://www.minv.sk/?volby-vuc&subor=28281 8 The election to the bodies of self-governing regions 2013 The youngest candidate for president of the self-governing regions in Slovakia was 25 years old. Current presidents of the self-governing regions: Bratislavský samosprávny kraj (Bratislava self-governing region): President Pavel Frešo is 45 years old.11 Trnavský samosprávny kraj (Trnava self-governing region): President Tibor Mikuš is 61 years old.12 Nitriansky samosprávny kraj (Nitra self-govering region): President Milan Belica is 63 years old.13 Trenčiansky samosprávny kraj (Trenčín self-govering region): President Jaroslav Baška is 39 years old.14 Žilinský samosprávny kraj (Žilina self-governing region): President Juraj Blanár is 48 years old.15 Banskobystrický samosprávny kraj (Banská Bystrica self-governing region): President Marian Kotleba is 37 years old.16 Prešovský samosprávny kraj (Prešov self-govering region): President Peter Chudík is 53 years old.17 Košický samosprávny kraj (Košice self-governing region): President Zdenko Trebuľa is 58 years old.18 11http://www.region-bsk.sk/EN/article/chairman-393435.aspx 12http://www.trnava-vuc.sk/sk/otvorena-samosprava/predseda 13http://www.unsk.sk/showdoc.do?docid=2196 14http://www.tsk.sk/trenciansky-samospravny-kraj/predseda-tsk.html?page_id=144 15http://www.regionzilina.sk/en/zilina-selfgoverning-region/president-self-governing-region/ 16http://www.vucbb.sk/portal/samosprava/predseda-bbsk 17http://www.po-kraj.sk/en/self-governing/chairman/nova-web-stranka.html 18http://web.vucke.sk/en/President/ 9 Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2013. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/osk/osk2013/VUC/osk_def_en.html Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2013. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/osk/osk2013/VUC/osk_def_en.html Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2013. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/osk/osk2013/VUC/osk_def_en.html Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. 2013. Available online: http://volby.statistics.sk/osk/osk2013/VUC/osk_def_en.html 10 The election to the bodies of self-governing regions 2009 Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic.