Slovakia municipal and regional election preparations

The Slovak government initiated legislative preparations to strengthen cooperation between municipalities. Following these efforts, the country began preparations for combined municipal and regional elections scheduled for October 2026.

Regarding the election process, the Ministry of Interior has outlined specific requirements for independent candidates. To qualify, candidates must collect a varying number of signatures based on the population of the municipality or region. For instance, candidates in towns with over 100,000 residents and those running for regional council president both require 1,000 signatures.

In Zvolen, electoral districts were restructured from six to four to address demographic imbalances and ensure voting equality, while the city council is set to maintain its 25-member composition. Meanwhile, in the Trnava Self-Governing Region, officials are considering increasing the number of regional councilors from 40 to 42. This proposal follows a protest by the General Prosecutor's Office regarding mandate distribution. The prosecutor argued that current distributions create significant disparities in the number of citizens represented per councilor. The proposed expansion would add one mandate each to the Skalica and Dunajská Streda districts to ensure the population-to-representative ratio difference remains below 25 percent.