How the caucuses voted in Slovakia’s parliament, 2024–2026

Manifestos say what parties want. Votes in the National Council show how their MPs decided on specific proposals. This overview covers 22 votes from the term that began with the election of 30 September 2023: two amendments to the Criminal Code, the act on STVR, an amendment to the law on non-governmental organisations, three proposed changes to the Constitution, consolidation acts and the budget, the rules on assistance in material need, eight draft resolutions on Ukraine and two no-confidence motions.

For each one we give the result by parliamentary caucus and a link to the vote page on nrsr.sk, where you can check how every MP voted. At the end, a table matches each vote to the statements in our test for which it serves as the source of a party's position. We describe the results without judging them.

Voters will elect a new National Council no later than September 2027. No date has been fixed so far; by our own unofficial estimate it could be Saturday 25 September 2027 (election guide).

Caucuses, not parties

In parliament the votes are cast by MPs, who group together in caucuses. A caucus usually matches the party on whose list its members were elected, but membership changes over the term: some MPs leave, move elsewhere or stay unaffiliated. The tables always show the membership on the day of the vote, as published by nrsr.sk. The number in brackets is the number of the parliamentary print (tlač).

In 2023 Hnutie Slovensko stood on the OĽANO A PRIATELIA list. Since autumn 2023 the government has been made up of Smer, Hlas and SNS, including on the day of each of these votes; the other four caucuses are in opposition. We use the words "coalition" and "opposition" only in this sense.

Republika, the Hungarian Alliance, Demokrati, Sme rodina and Právo na pravdu have no caucus in the National Council. The first four did not win a single seat in 2023, and Právo na pravdu did not yet exist. In this term, then, they do not vote as a caucus, and we do not attribute the votes of unaffiliated MPs to them. Their positions in the test rest on other sources: manifestos, statements and answers given to voting advice tools and, for Sme rodina, also votes from earlier terms; where a party has not addressed an issue, the position is estimated.

How to read the tables

• for, against, abst. (abstained): how the MPs voted.
• n.v. (did not vote): the MP was in the chamber but did not vote.
• absent: the MP took no part in the vote; nrsr.sk lists them among those not present. The record gives no reason and we do not add one.
• The result reads for – against – abstained.

A bill needs the support of a majority of the MPs present (Article 84(2) of the Constitution), a constitutional amendment needs 90 votes (Article 84(4)) and a vote of no confidence needs 76 (Article 88(2)). For draft resolutions, therefore, abstaining has the same effect as voting against: a motion fails unless more than half of those present vote for it.

Overview by caucus

Every figure comes from the nrsr.sk pages listed in the sources; we recounted the numbers in each cell from the roll-call list. In four votes (prints 106, 278, 1005 and 1555) only the coalition caucuses' MPs were in the chamber, joined in the last two by some of the unaffiliated MPs. There were 78 or 79 MPs present, at least the 76 the Constitution requires for a quorum (Article 84(1)).

What was voted on

Criminal law

Print 106 is a government amendment to the Criminal Code that also changed several other acts. It was published as Act No. 40/2024. Its Article VII deletes Sections 55b and 55d to 55l from the Public Prosecution Act, the provisions on the Office of the Special Prosecutor, and requires the office to hand over its files by 20 March 2024 to the Prosecutor General's Office or to the regional prosecutors' offices. We checked this in the published text on Slov-lex.

Print 1115 is a further government amendment to the Criminal Code, published as Act No. 416/2025. It adds Section 417f, headed "Popieranie mierového usporiadania po druhej svetovej vojne" (denial of the post-Second World War peace settlement), with a prison term of up to six months, and Section 351a, "Marenie volebnej kampane" (obstruction of an election campaign). The act does not mention the Beneš decrees by name. The unaffiliated MPs were split: three voted for and three against.

Media and non-governmental organisations

Print 278 is the act on Slovak Television and Radio tabled by the government; it replaced RTVS with STVR. Print 245 was tabled by three SNS MPs (Dagmar Kramplová, Milan Garaj and Adam Lučanský) and amends Act No. 213/1997 on non-profit organisations. On STVR the opposition caucuses were absent; on non-profit organisations they voted against.

The Constitution

Print 733 became Constitutional Act No. 255/2025, in force since 1 November 2025. According to the published text, it adds to the Constitution:

• Slovakia's sovereignty "in matters of national identity", which include marriage, parenthood and the family (Article 7(6) and (7));
• a ban on agreements to bear a child for someone else (Article 15(5)) and equal pay for men and women (Article 36(3));
• a sentence stating that a child's parents are a mother and a father, and a rule that a minor may be adopted by a married couple or, exceptionally, by a single person (Article 41);
• consent of the legal guardian for education about intimate life (Article 41(7)) and a new Article 52a recognising "only the biologically determined sex of man and woman".

The bill received exactly 90 votes. Besides the coalition, it was backed by nine KDH MPs (two who were present did not vote), three members of the SLOVENSKO caucus, whose other members were not in the chamber, and four unaffiliated MPs. SaS voted against and PS was not present.

Prints 1237 and 1271 were two private members' constitutional bills: the first was tabled by Hlas MPs together with the unaffiliated Roman Malatinec, the second by four SNS MPs. We have not checked their content, so we do not describe it. Neither reached 90 votes.

Public finances

Print 483 was published as Act No. 278/2024. From 1 January 2025 it raises the standard VAT rate from 20% to 23% (Article VII) and, in income tax, introduces a 24% rate for companies with taxable income above 5 million euros; it cuts the reduced rate for smaller companies from 15% to 10% and raises the threshold for it from 60,000 to 100,000 euros (Article III). Print 485 introduced the financial transaction tax.

Print 1005 is the consolidation act passed in September 2025; what it means for personal income tax is explained under statement E01. Print 1555 is the 2027 state budget. Two unaffiliated MPs, Tomáš Taraba and Peter Slyško, abstained on it.

Benefits

Print 727 ("Práca namiesto dávok", work instead of benefits; Act No. 151/2025) amends the act on assistance in material need in its Article III. If an adult member of a household turns down, without serious reason, suitable work offered by the labour office, the benefit is cut for one month by the amount for a single adult (86.50 euros), and for one to three months if it happens again. The act does not penalise turning down retraining in this way. KDH and SaS abstained; most PS and SLOVENSKO MPs voted against.

Ukraine

We found no act or resolution on Ukraine adopted by the National Council in this term on nrsr.sk. MPs from the opposition caucuses tabled eight draft resolutions and none passed. PS, SaS, KDH and SLOVENSKO voted for all eight; none of their MPs voted against or abstained, though a few who were present did not vote. The coalition caucuses and the unaffiliated MPs voted as follows:

Absent MPs are not shown in this table. We found no vote in the National Council during this term on military aid to Ukraine or on its membership of NATO. The National Council did vote on sanctions against Russia on 5 June 2025: a draft resolution by four SNS MPs rejecting the policy of sanctions and trade restrictions against the Russian Federation (print 759) passed by 51-1-23, with 76 MPs present. Voting for were 37 Smer MPs, 8 SNS MPs, three Hlas MPs and three unaffiliated MPs. Twenty-two Hlas MPs and one unaffiliated MP abstained, and one Hlas MP voted against. The PS, KDH and SLOVENSKO MPs were not in the chamber; one SaS MP was present and did not vote.

No confidence

A group of MPs' motion of no confidence in the government (print 697) received 60 of the 76 votes needed. The motion of no confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba (print 1400) passed with 77 votes: the four opposition caucuses, seven SNS MPs and two unaffiliated MPs voted for it, while the Smer and Hlas MPs were not in the chamber.

Where caucuses did not vote as one

Most of the time each caucus voted as a bloc. The exceptions:

• Constitutional amendment (733): in KDH two MPs who were present did not vote; in the SLOVENSKO caucus three voted for and eleven were not in the chamber; in SaS seven voted against and five were absent.
• Ukraine: Smer and SNS were split between "against" and "abstained"; in Hlas, Michal Bartek voted against three times (prints 145, 200 and 995) while the rest abstained. From Smer, Vladimír Baláž (304) and Vladimír Faič and Jozef Valocký (380) voted for.
• No confidence in Tomáš Taraba (1400): the three coalition caucuses acted differently: SNS voted for, while Smer and Hlas were not present.
• The June 2026 constitutional bills: KDH voted against bill 1237 and abstained on bill 1271.
• Material need (727): in PS, Martin Dubéci abstained and the other MPs present voted against; in the SLOVENSKO caucus Richard Vašečka and Anna Záborská abstained and ten voted against.

What a vote tells you and what it does not

A vote boils a whole act down to a single yes or no. The test asks about specific statements that only partly overlap with an act. Two examples:

• Statement W03 is about turning down work or retraining. The act that came out of print 727 only penalises turning down a job.
• The constitutional act that came out of print 733 has eight points and amends five articles of the Constitution. MPs who voted for it backed the whole package, not necessarily every part of it.

A party's position in the test may therefore rest on other sources besides a vote, and where it does rest on a vote, the explanation next to the statement says why. No position rests only on a party's caucus having been absent from the chamber.

Votes and test statements

Of the 22 votes, 9 are the source of at least one position in the test: 43 party positions in all, on 9 of the 42 test statements and on 4 tie-break questions (our calculation). The issue links show the positions of all twelve parties, with their sources or marked as estimated.

The other 13 votes (the financial transaction tax, the 2027 budget, both no-confidence motions, the two June 2026 bills and seven of the resolutions on Ukraine) are not used as sources in the test.

The test also cites other votes that this overview does not cover: a resolution on sanctions against Russia (print 759, whose result is described above), the act on measures to improve the security situation, known as lex atentát, which gives a lifetime annuity to former prime ministers and speakers of parliament (print 364, 27 June 2024, passed 79-63-0: for were Smer 42, Hlas 27 and SNS 10, against were PS 31, SLOVENSKO 13, KDH 10 and SaS 9; vote), an amendment to the nature protection act (print 270, May 2024), the December 2023 consolidation act (print 97) and three votes from 2019 to 2022, that is, from earlier terms. They account for another 18 positions; the link to the vote is always shown with the party's position.

Read more

• All positions in one table: party comparison.
• How agreement and disagreement turn into a match percentage: the analysis of how the match is calculated.
• Positions with no direct document: Estimated positions.
• Pages of the parties with a caucus in parliament: Smer, Hlas, SNS, PS, SaS, KDH, Hnutie Slovensko. Without a caucus: Republika, Hungarian Alliance, Demokrati, Sme rodina, Právo na pravdu.
• Compare your views with the parties: start the test.