WHO KOTLEBA’S VOTERS ARE? VOTERS’ TRANSITIONS IN THE BANSKÁ BYSTRICA REGION IN 2009 – 2014

The aim of the article is to explore voting behaviour of supporters of Marian Kotleba, a controversial right-wing candidate that won the presidency of the Banská Bystrica Region, Slovakia, in the 2013 regional elections. Specifically, the article models transitions of voters between political parties and candidates in the 2009 – 2014 in order to determine who Kotleba’s supporters are who voted for in other elections. A hierarchical Bayesian model of ecological inference is used to estimate the transitions rates. There is a group of people in the Region that consistently do not participate in the second order elections. Kotleba managed to mobilize a large share of these voters in the second round of the 2013 regional elections. Kotleba’s voters were highly disciplined – almost everyone who supported him in the first round participated in the second round and voted for him again. Kotleba was also as successful as his opponent Vladimír Maňka in mobilizing voters of the SMER(-SD) party and Rober Fico.