On Monday, December 8, 2025, the Institute for Public Affairs organized a theoretical-practical workshop with incumbent and future local leaders at the Center for Independent Culture Záhrada in Banská Bystrica as part of its project focused on local democracy and self-government. 

Grigorij Mesežnikov, IVO president, in the opening part of the workshop spoke about the importance of local and regional self-government in the system of democratic institutions. He also presented the experience and previous results of elections to local and regional self-government bodies, as well as the trends in successes of party and independent candidates. He also addressed the specific parameters of the mandate at the municipal and regional levels. 

Miroslav Kollár, IVO analyst, who previously served as the mayor of city Hlohovec and the executive vice-president of the Union of Slovak Cities, spoke about how to build an excellent and innovative local government and whether the rankings of transparency and healthy management for local governments are a goal or a tool for better governance of public affairs at the local level. He also presented the specifics of election campaigns at the local and regional levels. 

Martin Slosiarik from the FOCUS agency presented his experience with public opinion polls at the regional and municipal levels. He spoke about whether they make sense at the local level and what we can learn from them. He also presented the methodology of such polls in more detail way and also spoke about how to conduct them correctly at the municipal and regional levels, so that we can obtain relevant data from them as a basis for preparing campaigns, communication, but also for various public policies. 

The special guest at the event was Attila Agócs, the long-time successful mayor of city Fiľakovo, who spoke about the practical aspects of performing the mayoral function and the clash of municipal reality with the original visions and plans of candidates with whom they enter public office at the municipal level. 

The speakers answered numerous questions from the event participants in an interactive debate. 

The target group of this series of workshops, which will continue in 2026 with two events in Trnava and Košice, are local leaders and active citizens with an interest in municipal and regional politics. The project was supported by the British Embassy, ​​Bratislava.