Mladí Konzervatívci (Slovakian version)
Peter Martinovic (excellent blog), leader of Slovak Young Conservatives, has kindly produced this summary of centre-right youth activity in Slovakia. Thanks also to PragueTory for facilitating this.
Slovakia is a country of 5.4 million people and became independent in 1993. Slovakia joined the EU in May 2004. To put it mildly, the landscape of centre-right youth organisations in Slovakia is complicated. This is explained by the significant amount of party reorganization and realignment within mainstream politics. Today there are four identifiable and autonomous youth organisations. The overwhelming majority of the members are male and high school or university students. As a background, it should be noted that excluding the nationalist parties, there are two Slovak parties that can be considered centre-right, namely;
- SDKU-DS itself formed in January 2006 as a result of a merger between Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) & Democratic Party (DS)
- Christan Democratic Movement (KDH)
SDKU-DS Youth Organisations
NG – New Generation
NG is the official youth wing of Slovak Democratic and Christian Union
Democratic Party (SDKU-DS). Although the SDKU-DS has very close
relations with Czech ODS, NG, prefers to work with Czech Young
Christian Democrats (MKD) rather than with ODS’s Young Conservatives
(MK) whose partners in Slovakia are Civic Democratic Youth (ODM) (see
next).
Civic Democratic Youth - ODM
Aside from KDMS (see below), Civic Democratic Youth (ODM) is the next oldest and largest organisation with their membership reaching few hundreds. ODM used to be aligned with the small but influential Democratic Party (DS) which only recent merged with Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU (see above).
Due to internal frictions within DS, a group broke away and formed a new party in 2001 called the Civic Conservative Party (OKS). Young members who followed the senior members into OKS, left DS’s youth wing and established a new organisation, Young Conservatives (MK) which was founded in 2003. MK has only 60 members in 5 regional branches but are arguably the most ideological and the most politically active of all the youth organizations in Slovakia. A typical member of MK would admire Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, stand firmly on a Euro-sceptic platform and embrace a laissez-faire and low-tax economy. This grouping help organise annual Czech and Slovak Right-wing Days for members of all the centre-right parties and organizations. Rightist journalists, analysts, intellectuals or non-partisans are also in attendance. They also run a regular literary competition named after UK conservative politician Airey Neave.
Christan Democratic Movement (KDH) Youth Organisations
KDMS - Christian Democratic Youth of Slovakia
The KDMS is the oldest and largest youth organization in Slovakia. Although KDMS is closely aligned with the Christan Democratic Movement (KDH), this youth organization is quite inactive and most members use membership as a stepping stone towards mainstream politics.
Coming Together To Make An Impact
Several of the youth groupings co-operated to organise a petition for a referendum on the European Constitution and achieved success after Slovakia’s Constitutional Court met their request and halted the ratification process. All of the above organizations are working together to campaign for the introduction of university fees so as to engage students in the quality of their education and provide scholarships for less well off students.
Please comment if you have any questions
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