Opposition wins Slovakia poll

A leftist party led by one of the few leading politicians in Slovakia to escape voter anger over a major corruption scandal has been propelled back into power in an early parliamentary election, according to final results today.

Smer-Social Democracy of former Prime Minister Robert Fico is a clear winner with 44.4% of the vote, or 83 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, with votes from all 5,956 polling stations counted.

President Ivan Gasparovic said he would formally ask Mr Fico to form a new government but gave no timetable.

The result allows Mr Fico to govern alone – one party rule has not happened in Slovakia since the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993.

Today, however, Mr Fico offered opposition parties a chance to join forces and form a two-party coalition government, but all other parliamentary parties rejected his offer. Before the election, Mr Fico had discussed a necessity to create a strong, stable government, possibly formed by two parties, amid another economic downturn and efforts to save the eurozone.

Mr Fico – considered a populist leader – has pledged to maintain a welfare state, increase corporate tax and hike income tax for the highest earners.

“We succeeded with what we offered as an alternative,” Mr Fico said. “We’ve achieved a result that is a pleasant surprise for us, to be honest.”

The outgoing centre-right, four-party coalition received a combined 51 seats, on the back of voter anger over a major corruption scandal.

The new Ordinary People party that campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket won 16 seats, while the ultranationalist Slovak National Party, known for derogatory comments about ethnic Hungarians, Roma and political opponents, ended below the 5% threshold needed to win parliamentary representation.

Turnout was surprisingly high at 59.11%. Analysts had predicted a record low turnout, as voters were expected to register their anger over allegations that a private financial group bribed government and opposition politicians in 2005-06 to win lucrative privatisation deals.

The “Gorilla” files – posted online by an anonymous source in December and said to be based on wiretaps – have rocked Slovak politics. One former economy minister is said to have received the equivalent of 13 million dollars (£8.3 million) for his assistance.

Outgoing Prime Minister Iveta Radicova’s Slovak Democratic and Christian Union was hard hit by the allegations. Ms Radicova’s party was in power in 2005-06 and the then-prime minister, Mikulas Dzurinda, is now the foreign minister and party chairman. The party won 5.9% of the vote, despite overseeing an economic boom driven by solid growth, strong exports and the implementation of much-needed pension reforms. It won 15.4% at the 2010 ballot.

“It’s clear ... Gorilla is to blame,” Mr Dzurinda said. “It’s a serious loss.”

Disappointed by her government’s collapse, Ms Radicova is quitting politics and plans to lecture at Oxford University. She was Slovakia’s first female prime minister.

Mr Fico, whose party was in power in 2006-10, has been implicated in the corruption allegations, but says he is innocent because he couldn’t have influenced any decisions since he was part of the opposition.