@medzihorsky.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in Social Data Science at Durham U · Project Manager at V-Dem · Previously at LSE Methodology and U of Gothenburg · CEU PhD
China's business and enterprise sector catching up with Germany's in R&D expenditures as % of GDP.
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🇪🇺 Research & development expenditures in 2024, as published by Eurostat this week.
🇸🇪🇧🇪🇦🇹🇫🇮🇩🇪 and 🇩🇰 heading the field, chiefly thanks to their business and enterprise sectors.
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Hlas at a record low, 6.5%, but Mr Fico's coalition and the broader social-national bloc stable, as Smer's gain compensates, per latest NMS estimates
Incentives for Hlas cadres to (re)join Smer individually rather than to wait for a possible electoral coalition or outright party merger are rising.
A full color scan of a page that says "expert report" and shows a full color photo of a Verbatim DVD
An expert report in a high-profile public procurement of IT for ~€80m, attached as a DVD copy ... a xerox copy. At Slovakia's National Agency for Network and Electronic Services.
Found by
@jsuchal.bsky.social
via a FoI request.
A screenshot of the following text from Wikipedia: Janez Janša (born in 1958 as Ivan Janša), Slovenian politician and former Prime Minister of Slovenia Janez Janša (born in 1964 as Emil Hrvatin), Slovenian author, director and performer Janez Janša (born in 1973 as Žiga Kariž), Slovenian visual artist Janez Janša (born in 1970 as Davide Grassi), Slovenian performance artist
It's a curious bit of trivia that out of the four individuals indexed on English Wikipedia as Janez Janša, none was born under this name, and only one with the family name Janša.
03.12.2025 19:38 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A chart showing the life spans and tenure of selected long-serving leaders as described in the post. The chart is titled "I'm not glued to my chair!"
🪑🗓️ Founding fathers and others:
Messrs Janša, Fico, Kaczynski & Orbán meet Messrs Wilders and Åkesson in this chart of long-serving leaders of political parties of consequence in the EU.
There are other veteran party leaders, even in Slovakia. But their parties have been less consequential.
A chart by Our World In Data, showing life expectancy estimates for Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary, 1870-2023.
The former Cisleithanian and Transleithanian lands -- Austria and Czechia on the C hand, Hungary and Slovakia on T hand -- converged at fist, until they were within a one-year band of 69-70 in 1970. And then they started to diverge.
02.12.2025 09:49 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A bar chart showing the estimated numbers of voters willing to seriously consider voting for each non-micro Slovakian party, as estimated by Ipsos in late November 2025.
Ipsos estimates that up to 19% of voters are now willing to give Republika a serious consideration, ahead of Hlas, which is estimated at 16% in this.
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A chart with pooled polls from Slovakia.
A chart with pooled polls from Slovakia.
For Mr Fico's gov't coalition plus the far-right Republika (ESN), not even an unusually strong showing by the latter compensates from the declines that Mr Fico's junior partners Hlas and SNS are experiencing.
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A chart with pooled polls from Slovakia.
A chart with pooled polls from Slovakia.
Slovakia's November polling bonanza concludes with new Ipsos estimates. Again, Mr Fico's gov't coalition plus Republika (ESN) at some of their lowest numbers since the '23 elex. The center/right bloc of PS (RE) SaS (->EPP) D (EPP) at some of their highest.
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A new interview by @dennikn.bsky.social with the SaS leader Mr Gröhling where he talks about their efforts towards joining the EPP.
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A chart showing how Slovakia's SaS would fit into the different EP factions + NI in the classical 2-dimensional political compass Left-Right GAL-TAN space estimated by the Chapel Hill Expert Survey.
Slovakia's center-right liberal SaS say they're interested in joining the EPP. In 2014 they switched from ALDE to ECR, until dropping out of the EP in '24. Today, they'd fit better with their former ALDE colleagues in RE, at least in the compass space per @chesdata.bsky.social estimates.
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A chart showing Slovakia's population pyramid on 1 Jan 2025 as estimated by the UN World Population Prospects 2024 (median projection).
Among the 66+, females outnumber males, within the 18-30 y.o. males slightly outnumber females, per UN's World Population Prospects.
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A chart showing the estimates for 18-30 year olds on the horizontal axis and for the 66 and above on the vertical axis, with each party as a point in the two-dimensional space. Based on FOCUS polling in July-November 2025.
Slovakia's young and old voters diverge widely on Mr Fico's coalition, per FOCUS polls in Jul-Nov
66 and older: 44% Smer+Hlas, 12% PS
18-30 y.o.: 11% Hlas, 45% PS
PS+SaS+ D
19% vs 58%
Smer+Hlas+SNS+Rep
56% vs 26%
66+ are 22% of the adult population, 18-30 y.o. 16%
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An AI generated "photo" of a toilet seat cover hanging on a gallery wall like painting, the cover is painted and styled as a silver-black 1970s Chevelle SS cover, complete with a hood scoop.
Hommage to Richard Prince.
Took the Banana way more attempts than one would hope. QR code blurred.
Ukrainian sumo wrestler Aonishiki, whose real name is Danylo Yavhusishyn, on Sunday became the first from his nation to win a tournament of the traditional Japanese sport.
23.11.2025 10:07 — 👍 169 🔁 59 💬 4 📌 9And the bonanza continues with a Nov poll by FOCUS. At this rate, Ipsos will release theirs this afternoon.
The far-right Republika (ESN) is where the pollsters differ the most. Back in '23, it was AKO who got the last-minute flow from R to Smer that ended up with R outside of the parliament.
Though the pollsters mostly agree on Mr Fico's Smer, they differ--sometimes widely--on Republika, towards which Smer seems to have bled a noticeable chunk of its 2023 voters.
Regardless, Smer and Hlas continue on the downwards trend that began shortly after the assassination attempt on Mr Fico
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Under these vote %s, all at least somewhat viable hypothetical gov't coalitions need KDH (EPP).
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a chart with pooled opinion polls from Slovakia
a chart with pooled opinion polls from Slovakia
🇸🇰 polling bonanza continues with a Nov poll by AKO. Mr Fico's coalition plus Republika (ESN) again < 40%.
KDH (EPP) keeps hang not far above the threshold, but its coalition prospects may be improving.
The center/-right oppo bloc PS SaS D reaching towards a parl majority with KDH (EPP).
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Mr Fico's gov't coalition plus its potential ally, the extra-parliamentary Republika (ESN), got two of its lowest aggregate support estimates in October and November polls by the state-owned Infostat, <40%. This chiefly due to Republika doing worse than in other polls. OTOH, KDH (EPP) did better.
20.11.2025 09:09 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A screenshot of the seeding pots 2 and 3 for the 2nd stage FIFA WC 2026 qualification draw by UEFA. It shows a table with two columns. Column Pot 2: Poland, Wales, Czech Republic, Slovakia; Pot 3: Republic of Ireland, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo.
UEFA's new Visegrád 4 is ... surprising. And then there's the almost Balkans pot, if not for Ireland.
19.11.2025 13:14 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Recent Ipsos analysis estimates that Republika now has about as many of the '23 voters of the gov't coalition as its own '23 voters.
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The center-/right bloc PS (RE) SaS (ECR) D (EPP) not breaking its record numbers, though D now more often above the 5% threshold.
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Declining Smer and Hlas, buoyant Republika.
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November poll by NMS finds Mr Fico's gov't coalition at its lowest numbers in office and the extra-parliamentary Republika (ESN) at its highest yet.
As the gov't coalition continues its move far right, some estimate suggest a chunk of their 2023 voters moves even further to the far right.
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A chart showing the smoothed average of support in Slovakian opinion polls of Mr Matovič's electoral vehicle formerly known as OĽaNO, from its founding until the present.
A rear view mirror image of the blip that launched Mr Matovič to become Slovakia's PM over five years ago.
11.11.2025 10:32 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0![A screenshot of the following text on Wikipedia:
8
Mohammad Aftab Alam, 63, Nepali politician and convicted murderer, MP (1997–2002, 2018–2019).[1]
Antasari Azhar, 72, Indonesian politician and convicted murderer, chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (2007–2009).[2]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:e4zmgx4h2lfistppwfeabtbl/bafkreiaoddxg6c4xspi4z2krld2qeb74qnpic3gk53bli37xq3wk46e45i@jpeg)
A screenshot of the following text on Wikipedia: 8 Mohammad Aftab Alam, 63, Nepali politician and convicted murderer, MP (1997–2002, 2018–2019).[1] Antasari Azhar, 72, Indonesian politician and convicted murderer, chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (2007–2009).[2]
One of those co-incidences: the top of the 8 Nov entry on Wikipedia's notable deaths list
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_...
Incomplete use-case overlap though
08.11.2025 19:14 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
