Slovak Socialist Opposition Win Absolute Majority on Snap Elections

World | March 11, 2012, Sunday // 14:23|  views

An old picture of Robert Fico (C) as Slovakia's PM on the country's adoption of the euro, January 01, 2009. EPA/BGNES

Slovak opposition Smer Social Democracy party has won some 45% of the vote in early parliamentary election, giving it absolute majority in Parliament, according to preliminary counts.

The results take into account about 94% of the ballots cast Saturday, and are a significantly better showing by Smer, which was anyway expected to win the vote with some 39% support in pre-election opinion polls.

Early exit polls after voting closed were showing the party, headed by former Slovakia PM Robert Fico, with 39.9% of the vote, meaning 75 MPs out of 150.

If the 45% results are confirmed by the end count, Smer will have 84 MPs, enabling it to form a single-party government.

Snap elections were called in Slovakia after the toppling of former PM Iveta Radicova's rightist coalition cabinet led by the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU), after it lost a confidence vote in Parliament.

Radicova's government was gravely harmed by a massive corruption scandal that erupted in December 2011, after secret service wiretaps of alleged meetings between top politicians and leaders of a local financial group in the period 2005-6 leaked on the Internet.

The so-called Gorilla scandal unveiled a widespread corruption network with the serious involvement of politicians from the government in power.

Punished by Slovak voters as expected, the coalition won some 31% of the vote. The new Ordinary People party, running on an anti-corruption agenda, made a good showing, passing the threshold with some 9% of the vote.

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Tags: Smer, Slovak, Slovakia, Robert Fico, elections, Iveta Radicova, corruption, Socialist, rightist

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