On 24 October 2026, Slovakia held regional and municipal elections, electing regional governors, city mayors and representatives to regional and local councils. Barikáda looks at the main results.
The elections took place at two levels — regional and municipal.
At the regional level, voters elected:
- Regional governors (župani);
- Members of regional assemblies.
At the municipal level, Slovak residents voted for:
- City mayors (primátori);
- Mayors of city districts in Bratislava and Košice, as well as heads of smaller administrative units (starostovia);
- Members of city councils, city district councils and municipal councils.
Voting took place in almost 3,000 cities, towns and municipalities. Voters could cast their ballots only in the place where they are permanently registered; postal voting or absentee voting certificates are not available for municipal elections in Slovakia.
Regional Elections: The Race in the East
Votes in the regional governor elections were counted first. Once the initial preliminary results came in, it became clear that the main suspense would centre on eastern Slovakia.
In the Prešov Region, MEP and one of the leaders of the far-right Republika party, Milan Mazurek, unexpectedly took the lead in the early results. One of the key points in his campaign platform was cutting material support for the region’s Roma population. As counting progressed, however, he lost the lead to the incumbent regional governor, Milan Majerský, leader of the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH).
Majerský ultimately won with 48.77% of the vote, receiving 138,819 votes. He defeated Mazurek by more than 13 percentage points, a margin of over 38,500 votes.
In the Košice Region, the outcome remained uncertain until the end. Incumbent regional governor and independent candidate Rastislav Trnka won with 32% of the vote, overcoming his rivals despite the many problems facing the region. The race was extremely close, however: Marián Porvažník, the candidate backed by a broad democratic coalition, finished second, just 1.3 percentage points behind Trnka — a difference of only 3,117 votes.
Incumbent regional governors also won in the country’s other regions. The most decisive victory belonged to Juraj Droba, head of the Bratislava Region and one of the founders of the liberal Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS), who finished almost 60 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival.
Mayoral Elections
Bratislava Mayor Matúš Vallo retained his position without major difficulty. The 49-year-old politician won almost two-thirds of the vote in the capital, securing a third term as mayor. His main rival was Slovakia’s Transport Minister, Jozef Ráž, whose candidacy was actively supported by Prime Minister Robert Fico. Ráž received only around one-third of the votes cast.
Almost 190,000 people voted in the Bratislava mayoral election, nearly half of all registered voters in the capital. Turnout was considerably lower in Košice, Slovakia’s second-largest city, at just 37%.
Yet the Košice race was one of the day’s main contests: could incumbent mayor Jaroslav Polaček, an independent candidate backed by parties from the democratic camp and representatives of the Hungarian minority, retain his position after leading the city since 2014?
He ultimately failed to do so. The new mayor is Ladislav Lörinc, head of the large Košice district of Sídlisko KVP, who ran on behalf of the regional political movement Košická strana (Košice Party).
In addition to Košice, two other regional capitals will have new mayors: Trenčín and Trnava. Both elections were won by independent candidates, Ján Forgáč and Eva Nemčovská, respectively. Their predecessors, Richard Rybníček and Peter Bročka, had led these major cities in western Slovakia since 2010 and 2014, respectively.
One of the key outcomes was the defeat of Robert Fico’s governing coalition in the country’s largest cities. Its candidates failed to win the mayoral election in any of Slovakia’s eight regional capitals. These cities remain under the control of either the liberal opposition or influential independent local leaders.
Other Results
Several other major cities also saw notable results. For the first time in a long while, Prievidza and Poprad will have new mayors.
In Prievidza, the election was won by Branislav Gigac, spokesperson for Ombudsman Róbert Dobrovodský. Running as an independent candidate, he received 46.53% of the vote, defeating incumbent mayor Katarína Macháčková, who will leave office after 16 years leading the city.
In Poprad, independent candidate Jozef Králik was elected mayor with exactly 50% of the vote. He will replace Anton Danko, who has led the city for five electoral terms, with interruptions.
The city of Martin will also have a new mayor. In the second-largest city in the Žilina Region, Michal Uherčík, the candidate of a united democratic opposition, won with 39% of the vote. Incumbent mayor Ján Danko, who had held the position since 2018, is stepping down.
The results in Štrba, in the High Tatras, are also worth noting. Michal Sýkora, 73, won the election for the 12th consecutive time. He has led the municipality continuously since 1990. In this election, he received 38.25% of the vote, with turnout reaching almost 58%.
The full election results are available on the website of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic:
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The election in Kežmarok, in eastern Slovakia, also ended in a notable upset. The city elected a new mayor for the first time in 12 years: incumbent mayor and National Council MP Ján Ferenčák lost by a narrow margin of just 82 votes.
Ferenčák is best known for being expelled from the Hlas-SD party in March following a prolonged internal political conflict. The new mayor is 32-year-old independent candidate Marek Hovaňák, who received 31.19% of the vote.
The extremely close result and long-standing personal animosities led to a scandal on election night in Kežmarok. At around 3 a.m., two long-time and outspoken critics of Ferenčák, Dávid Gavira and Gregor Kuffa, arrived at the defeated candidate’s home and began celebrating his loss loudly, with music, directly beneath his windows.
The conflict between Gavira and Ferenčák has been going on for some time. Gavira previously published a compromising video showing Ferenčák counting tens of thousands of euros in cash. The politician himself maintained that the money was part of an ordinary loan.
Overall, the elections passed peacefully, with police recording around 140 minor incidents. These included long queues at polling stations, errors in ballot papers and mixed-up forms in Bratislava, as well as two suspected cases of voter bribery involving food, alcohol and money in the Košice Region.
As has often happened in Slovakia, some polling stations remained open past 8 p.m. As a result, the publication moratorium on election results was extended by several dozen minutes in four regions: Banská Bystrica, Košice, Žilina and Trenčín. The delays were caused by local disruptions and temporary suspensions of voting at individual polling stations.
| The next major elections in Slovakia will be parliamentary elections, which must take place no later than October 2027. |
