On Wednesday and Thursday, February 11 and 12, 2026, the Institute for Public Affairs continued a series of motivational workshops with incumbent and future local leaders in the independent cultural centers Tabačka (Košice) and Malý Berlín (Trnava). In addition to the standard blocks, almost a hundred participants in both workshops had a opportunity to interact with special guests possessing the specific mayoral experience: in Košice it was the mayor of the Košice - Sídlisko KVP district Ladislav Lörinc, and in Trnava it was the mayor of Dubnica nad Váhom, Peter Wolf, who is also the vice president of the Union of Slovak Cities.   

In the opening part of the workshops, Grigorij Mesežnikov, president of the Institute for Public Affairs, spoke about the importance of local and regional self-government in the system of democratic institutions. He also presented the analysis of experience and results of all previous elections to local and regional self-government bodies, as well as the analysis of the factors of the success of party and independent candidates. In this context, he drew attention to the correlation between the declining number of political party members and the lower degree of successes of party candidates in municipal and regional elections. 

Miroslav Kollár, an analyst at the Institute for Public Affairs, who previously served as the mayor of Hlohovec and the executive vice president of the Union of Slovak Cities, spoke about how to build excellent and innovative local self-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 specificities of election campaigns at the local and regional levels. 

Martin Slosiarik from the FOCUS polling 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 example, for various public policies. 

The target group of this series of workshops, which IVO implemented in Banská Bystrica, Košice and Trnava, are local leaders and active citizens with an interest to be involved in municipal and regional politics. The project was supported by the British Embassy, ​​Bratislava.  

You can find the shortened recordings from individual panels of the Trnava’s meeting throughout February 2026 as special parts of the Mayor's Guide podcast (podcast Sprievodca starostu).

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