2023 Slovak constitutional referendum

2023 Slovak constitutional referendum

21 January 2023 (2023-01-21)
Do you agree that the early termination of the election period of the National Council of the Slovak Republic can be carried out by a referendum or a resolution of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, namely by changing the Constitution of the Slovak Republic?
Outcome	Proposal failed as voter turnout was below 50%
Results
Choice Votes % Yes 1,163,586 98.44% No 18,398 1.56% Valid votes 1,181,984 99.14% Invalid or blank votes 10,265 0.86% Total votes 1,192,249 100.00% Registered voters/turnout 4,377,565 27.24%
Results of the "yes" vote as a percentage of registered voters by district

A constitutional referendum was held in Slovakia on 21 January 2023. Following the 2020 parliamentary election, in which the Direction – Slovak Social Democracy (SMER) was defeated by the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO), opposition parties initiated a referendum to call a snap election.

The proposed referendum was rejected by the Constitutional Court of Slovakia in 2021, although the organisers submitted another proposal in August 2022. The organisers wanted to propose two questions, one that would ask for the modification of the National Council to call a snap election and one that would ask for the resignation of Eduard Heger's government; the Court ruled that the latter question is unconstitutional, but approved the first one. Subsequently, Zuzana Čaputová, the president of Slovakia, announced the date of the referendum, while Heger voiced his opposition to such referendum.

Although a very large majority of those that voted supported the proposal, it nevertheless was not adopted as less than 50% of all eligible voters in the country exercised their right to vote in the referendum, a requirement under current Slovak law.