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@Loukas@mastodon.nu#Slovakia election result - Smer party that opposes aid to Ukraine gets the most votes, but will have a hard time forming a coalition, unless the Hlas party led by a rival from Smer will cooperate with them.
Three far-right parties, including Nazis who had been on 8%, failed to get over the 5% threshold to parliament.
NB, if you see news describing Smer as 'left-wing', it's important to remember this party wants to ban gay marriage and adoption, says Muslims have no place in Slovakia, and scapegoats the Roma minority.
The party is, however, a member of the EU social democratic alliance - led by Swedish ex-prime minister Stefan Löfven.
This mix of left-wing welfare policy, but mixed with racism and homophobia and misogyny is more common in European political parties than you'd think.
The liberal party is today reaching out to Hlas to try to form a government and block Smer. It's all to play for. https://tvpworld.com/73108451/slovakia-in-postelection-turmoil-as-parties-battle-for-coalition-amid-smerssds-triumph
(NB tvp-world is a broadcaster that reflects the views of Poland's far-right government. I share this article by them because I think in this case it is reporting information accurately.)
@Loukas That's what Poland has.
@JoCzechowska @Loukas PiS has a different background - hard-right anti-communism, clericalism, etc. Until five minutes ago when it tried buying farmer votes, it was very pro-Ukraine. Smer is much more of an Ostalgie party and is Putinist.
@Loukas You don't have to go back all that far in time to find very widespread homophobia in the UK left (depressingly, you don't have to go back at all to find transphobia).
The presumption that broadly-left economic and social views necessarily go together was an assumption of the 90s and 00s based on a few western countries.
Of course, I wish we could rely on all economic progressives to care about human rights too. But no point pretending that's reality. I see a lot of leftie bigots.
@RT_Alt the presumption has older roots than that, because socialists of varying kinds have often been at the forefront of feminist, LGBTQ and antiracism. The idea that these kinds of politics are mainstream and centrist does date from around that period you mention, absolutely. So now we're in a period of backlash against that.
@Loukas Sorry, I explained myself badly. Of course there have always been people on the left fighting for human rights across the board - I'm sorry, I really didn't want to deny that!
I was (in my brain) meaning to talk about mainstream left wing political parties, who have not always been anything like as progressive as many socialists on the ground.
Also, though I wish this wasn't the case, at least in the UK there was historically a *lot* of bigotry in trade unions.
@RT_Alt no need to apologise, it's a complex topic and I don't think either of us are giving a full picture in our short posts :)
I agree that misogyny and homophobia and racism have deep roots in the left, especially in the big parties and the big labour organisations and I agree that the turn of the millennium did create a kind of memory watershed which means lots of people don't know or remember that fact.
@Loukas there are many issues with UK first past the post system, but you can see the flipside problems of alternatives here. The deals of who forms a government happen after the election. And on this occasion, the 5% threshold keeping far right away is good, but also feels a slightly arbitrary cutoff.
@gpollara yes such a high threshold usually means the established parties are trying to stop challenges. See Turkey for a really extreme case.
@Loukas what's the threshold there?
@Loukas wow, that's seriously high!