A surprise majority

Until the eve of the vote, the government appeared short of the three-fifths or 90 votes required to change the constitution. Fico’s coalition – Smer, Hlas, and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) – held only 78 reliable votes in the 150-member chamber. On September 25, the prime minister even cancelled a proposed secret ballot and insisted this would be “the last time” his MPs supported such a change.

But by the following morning, something had shifted. Two members of the conservative opposition movement Slovensko – Marek Krajci and Rastislav Kratky – defected, which with all the governing coalition, most of the opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), and three from the joint Slovensko–For the People–Christian Union caucus gave Fico exactly the number required.

Krajci and Kratky’s reversal stunned colleagues, especially as both had pledged just the day before to vote against the changes.

“The government’s proposals cut into the human rights agenda, but the main goal is clearly to divide the opposition,” political scientist Juraj Marusiak had warned months earlier, noting Smer’s past success in luring Christian-conservative voters. In 2014, the party had helped enshrine marriage in the constitution as solely a union between a man and a woman.

After the vote, Fico told reporters he had spoken with “influential people” who contacted the two MPs, without elaborating. Both denied pressure from church leaders, though Archbishop Bernard Bober is known to have texted Slovensko leader Igor Matovic in the run-up to the vote.

KDH’s support for the amendment followed months of negotiation with Smer and the inclusion of some of its own proposals. Slovensko had pledged backing only if the KDH fronted the measure, not Smer.

“Betraying your word so blatantly is beyond me,” said Michal Simecka, leader of Progressive Slovakia, the largest opposition party. “Our party can no longer trust Slovensko’s lawmakers.”

The defectors justified their decision as a matter of conscience. “I am a man of faith. I try to align my decisions with God’s will,” Krajci said, citing advice from a theologian and the recent death of US conservative activist Charlie Kirk as influences. “He [the theologian] told me that history offers many examples of God using even bad people to achieve good – that for God, it’s no problem to use Robert Fico to advance good.”

Kratky, on the other hand, said faith played no role, calling it purely “a political decision”.

After the vote, Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova of SNS called the day “historic”. “Progressivism forced us to define the biological fact that there are two sexes,” she said.

SNS party leader Andrej Danko went further, denouncing same-sex couples as “perverse”.

For Fico, the vote proved that his government could still muster a constitutional majority when the issue appealed to conservative sentiment.

What the amendment does

The constitutional package introduces six key provisions:

• Recognition of only two sexes: The constitution now explicitly defines male and female as the only biological sexes.
• Ban on surrogacy: Surrogacy is prohibited nationwide.
• Adoption and family law: Parenthood is defined in biological terms; adoption is limited to “eligible persons” under ordinary law, i.e. only married couples.
• Parental rights in education: Parents can decide whether their children take part in lessons about sexuality beyond the national curriculum.
• Equal pay clause: A symbolic guarantee of equal pay for equal work between men and women.
• Sovereignty clause: Slovakia “retains sovereignty” over national identity, culture, family life and ethics – wording some lawyers say could override EU law in these areas.

The amendment’s roots reach back to early 2025, when the Smer-led governing coalition opened public consultations on a draft linking “traditional values” and “the protection of life and human dignity” to national identity. It also tightened parental rights and reaffirmed marriage as that between a man and a woman.

The KDH introduced its own rival draft with additional safeguards, including bans on surrogacy and human cloning, and a “conscience clause” for health and education workers. Initially, KDH vowed to back only its version. But as the coalition’s bill advanced, it negotiated concessions and switched sides.

By June, the two camps had produced a hybrid text combining bans on surrogacy and gender reassignment with parental rights and an equal-pay guarantee. Still, the coalition was unsure it had enough votes. A scheduled June vote was delayed after Hlas MP Jan Ferencak threatened to abstain unless the threshold for future constitutional amendments was raised from 90 to 100 votes.

The postponement gave civil society time to mobilise. The Slovak Society of International Law warned of “application chaos” if domestic law overrode EU obligations. The Public Defender of Rights raised similar concerns. A network of NGOs called the Human Rights Coalition urged MPs to reject the draft, warning it would “strip the constitution of guarantees that international law takes precedence.”