Greens Win Simulated Elections among Secondary School Students

Bratislava, May 30 (TASR) – Secondary school students elected Greens-European Free Alliance in simulated election to the European Parliament held in early May, according to results of the joint project carried out by Academia Istropolitana Nova and Helsinki Human Rights Committee in Slovakia under the title “Platform of European Democratic Culture Ambassadors”.

Kalman Petocz of the Helsinki Human Rights Committee in Slovakia presented the results of the project at a news conference in Bratislava on Thursday. The simulated election’s speciality was that students were not choosing from the portfolio of slates of 31 parties running in Slovakia, but from eight Europe-wide parties represented in the European Parliament in the form of political factions. A total of 5,215 students from 41 secondary schools joined the simulated elections. The total number of students attending these schools is 12,295, which means that the voter turnout was 42.42 percent. The voter turnout of students with an active voting right was 47.90 percent, noted Petocz.

According to the results, the simulated election was won by Greens-European Free Alliance on 23.16 percent, followed by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe on 20.13 percent and the European People’s Party on 14.29 percent. The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats finished fourth (12.77 percent), followed by Europe of Nations and Freedom (8.84 percent), Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (6.96 percent), European Conservatives and Reformists (6.67 percent) and the European United Left-Nordic Green Left (4.89 percent).

According to Petocz, another simulated election among secondary school students was organised by the NGO For Secondary School Students in early May. In this survey students were choosing from the real offer of 31 Slovak political parties running in the EP elections with far-right LSNS winning the election on almost 16 percent. Petocz added that the political factions Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy and Europe of Nations and Freedom, which can be viewed as factions whose ideological and political message is close to that of LSNS, gained almost 16 percent in the simulated elections co-organised by the Helsinki committee.