On the Results of the Parliamentary Election in Czechoslovakia in 1935 with Regard to the Hungarian Opposition and Negativistic Political Parties – Land Christian-Socialist Party (OKSzP) and Hungarian National Party (MNP)

Abstract

The study maps in detail the election results of the joint election list of candidates of both opposition and negativistic Hungarian minority political parties, the Land Christian-Socialist Party (Országos Keresztény Szocialista Párt; OKSzP) and the Hungarian National Party (Magyar Nemzeti Párt; MNP) in the parliamentary election held in May of 1935. The fourth parliamentary election held in 1935 constituted the last election for the Chamber of Deputies and for the Senate of the National Assembly of the First Czechoslovak Republic. The election presaged the turbulent development in the oncoming period that became a crisis period and, at the same time, a fatal period for the First Czechoslovak Republic. The results of the parliamentary election of 1935 brought considerable surprise. The opposition and, above all, negativistic Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei; SdP) became the general winner of the parliamentary election at national level, both in the election for the Chamber of Deputies and in the election for the Senate. The election results of both opposition and negativistic Hungarian minority political parties did not markedly differ from their election results achieved in the preceding election held in 1929. Additionally, both Hungarian parties achieved one mandate less in the Parliament, with 14 mandates in total, but 15 candidates elected from their list of candidates went to the National Assembly, similarly to 1929. Both Hungarian parties had participated in the election of 1935 in coalition together with smaller political subjects of the German minority: with the Union of Germans Settled in Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia (Einheit des Bodenständigen Deutschtums in Slovensko und Podkarpatská Rus) and with the Sudeten German Election Bloc (Sudetendeutscher Wahlblock; SdW).That was also a reason for which the election of 1935 allowed voting for the joint list of candidates of OKSzP and MNP also in the electoral regions in the historical countries, i.e. in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. One Senate mandate was achieved by a candidate of the Sudeten German Election bloc, SdW, in the electoral region of Brno. But the parliamentary representation of both political parties of the Hungarian minority, as compared to the political parties of the German minority, was virtually negligible – the Hungarian parties achieved 3% mandates in total and in the Senate, 3,3% mandates.