Slovakia’s Fico loses majority amid extreme right gains

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (UPDATED) – Slovakia’s leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico said Sunday, March 6, he would begin difficult coalition talks after winning elections on an anti-refugee platform but losing his parliamentary majority.

Smaller parties, including the extreme right, scored first-time seats and a record total of 8 parties reached the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

With 99% of votes counted, Fico’s Smer-Social Democrats (Smer-SD) party had 49 seats, down sharply from his comfortable 83-seat majority in the 150 member parliament.

Having earlier dubbed the result a “big mishmash” of parties, Fico announced the start of coalition talks.

“Today we begin the first preliminary negotiations,” he said, vowing to “try to assemble a meaningful and stable government.” 

“It isn’t going to be easy. We’ll have to do everything to rule out the likelihood of early elections.”

The liberal Freedom and Solidarity SaS came second with 21 seats, followed by the conservative OLANO-NOVA which took 19 seats. Its leader Igor Matovic told Slovakia’s TASR news agency: “This is a big earthquake.”

In the run-up to Saturday’s vote, analysts did not rule out a repeat of Fico’s hollow victory in 2010, when a gaggle of liberal centrists and moderate right-wingers teamed up to govern after he won, but failed to form a coalition.

SaS leader Richard Sulik on Sunday ruled out a coalition with Fico and signaled his willingness to try to form a government should Fico fail.

“We’ll see if Smer-SD is able to form a government. If it is, all is done. If not, it’s our turn,” Sulik told journalists.

He added: “When it comes to forming the government, we only rule out cooperation with Smer-SD…”

‘Fascists in parliament’

Building a coalition “could take weeks, even months,” political analyst Samuel Abraham told AFP, adding that for Fico to clinch his third term, he would likely “distance himself” from the far right and woo 3 or 4 centrist parties like SaS. 

The far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) made it back into parliament after a 4-year absence with 15 seats.

The extreme right nationalist LS-Nase Slovensko (Our Slovakia) led by Marian Kotleba secured 14 seats to enter parliament for the first time.

“It will be a major disaster at the time when the Slovak Republic will preside over the European Union to have fascists in our parliament,” Smer-SD MEP Monika Flasikova Benova said.

“Kotleba is a neo-Nazi… Fico used nationalist rhetoric regarding migrants and this strengthened the extreme right in Slovakia,” Abraham added. 

Another analyst, Abel Ravasz, said “Fico will need at least 2 to 3 partners to form a coalition and a government.

“The opposition can only form a government if it can gather 6 centrist and right parties in an alliance.”

Fico’s strongly anti-refugee policies echo those of other hardliners in the EU’s poorer ex-communist east, including Czech President Milos Zeman, Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban, and Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski. 

‘Vitriolic’ poll campaign

All have shunned refugees as Europe grapples with its worst migration crisis since World War II. 

Fico vowed to “never bring even a single Muslim to Slovakia” and filed a lawsuit against an EU-wide plan to redistribute refugees across the bloc. 

As Slovakia prepares to take over the EU presidency in July, Fico starkly warned that “we have reached the point when… Greece is likely to be sacrificed for the sake of Schengen,” referring to the 26-nation passport-free travel zone.

Analyst Ravasz told AFP that Fico missed the mark with his unwavering anti-refugee drive as bread and butter issues like salary hikes for public sector workers came to the fore in the final days of the campaign.

“His favorite topic, the migrant issue, lost a lot of momentum in the previous weeks and the new topical issues, namely the protests of teachers and health personnel, were not handled well by Fico.” – Laszlo Juhasz and Mary Sibierski in Warsaw, Poland, AFP / Rappler.com