BRATISLAVA, September 19, (WEBNOVINY) — The Statistics Office has published unofficial results of the six-question referendum initiated by the liberal party SaS held on Saturday. Based on the preliminary unofficial results, overall turnout was 22.84 percent, which means the results of the referendum will not be valid. The Statistics Office released the data after votes were counted in all 5060 election districts. Of the 4,369,553 registered eligible voters, 998,142 people voted in the referendum.
Turnout was higher in several constituencies in the larger cities. In the district of Nitra it was 20.88 percent, in the district of Banska Bystrica it was 28.64 percent, in the district of Presov it was 25.3 percent and in the district of Kosice it was 26.31 percent. The highest reported participation in the referendum was in the district of the town of Senec, where, according to unofficial results turnout was 30.24 percent.
Despite his initial ambiguous statements, President Ivan Gasparovic eventually did vote in Saturday’s referendum. Before the plebiscite, the head of state refused to say whether he would participate or not. „He had never ruled out in advance that he would not take part in the referendum, but he neither confirmed nor denied participation, so that his statement would not support the referendum, which the SaS party used as an instrument to be elected to parliament and to promote its own political goals,“ said presidential spokesman Marek Trubac for SITA news agency. President Gasparovic cast his ballot in Bratislava at 21:50, ten minutes before the polls closed.
Political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov said he surprised that President Gasparovic voted in the referendum. „Maybe he finally realized that as head of state he should have more respect for instruments of direct democracy,“ Meseznikov said for SITA.
According to unofficial results, voters answered all six questions in the referendum positively. In the referendum, Slovakia’s citizens were asked to answer questions on cancellation of concessionaire fees paid to public service media, restriction of deputy immunity from prosecution, introduction of a cap on government limousines of EUR 40,000, introduction of on-line voting, a change to the Election Act to downsize the number of members of parliament from 150 to 100 from the next election term and adoption of a law to exclude persons exercising executive power in the government from the right of reply according to the Press Act.
Fears of SaS chairman and Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik that the referendum could end in a fiasco did not come true. Sulik said on Saturday that he would see it as a problem if fewer people voted in the referendum than the number that signed the petition on the basis of which it was held. „Definitely yes, it would be flop, if not even those 400,000 people came,“ said Sulik.
SITA