When over 99 percent of the votes have been counted, Fico’s populist party Smer has a convincing lead with over 23 percent of the votes.
The runner-up, the western-oriented Progressive Slovakia (PS), is at 17 percent. That is significantly below the 23.5 percent the party received in a polling station survey published on Saturday evening.
Assessors have likened Robert Fico to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who defies the rest of the EU by having a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the election campaign, Fico promised, among other things, that NATO country Slovakia will not send “a single bullet” to neighboring Ukraine.
Must seek support in the middle
But it was not such a right-leaning election result as some countries, such as France and Germany, had feared. Fico looks like he needs to seek support among the center parties.
– Maybe it will be pragmatic. But if you’re Viktor Orbán, you’re probably very happy, because it seems he’s getting a friend who is more anti-Ukrainian and populist, says Jona Källgren, TV4 Nyhetern’s foreign reporter.
Wants to get closer to Russia
Since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine last year, Slovakia has, in terms of GDP, been one of the countries in Europe that sent the most support to the war-torn country.
With Robert Fico as prime minister, there will by all accounts be a U-turn in foreign policy, according to analysts.
Among other things, he has called for improved relations with Russia.
Fico has been prime minister twice before: 2006-2010 and 2012-2018. Massive protests following the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova led to Fico’s resignation in 2018.
At the time of the murder, Kuciak was about to publish an examination of corruption in the country at a high political level.
Coalition required
However, since neither party won a majority in Saturday’s election, a coalition government will be required.
A party that can play a key role is HLAS-SD, which receives 15 percent of the vote. HLAS-SD is a breakaway party from Smer led by Fico’s former party mate Peter Pellegrini.
Pellegrini took over as prime minister from Fico in 2018 but left Smer when they lost the 2020 election. Since then, a shaky center-right coalition has held power in Slovakia.
Just over 50 percent of the Slovak population believes that the West and Ukraine are responsible for Russia’s war of invasion, according to a survey conducted by the think tank Globsec.
Facts: Slovakia
Slovakia is about the same size as Värmland and Dalarna combined and borders the Czech Republic and Poland to the north, Austria to the west, Hungary to the south and Ukraine to the east. The country has 5.5 million inhabitants, of which around 500,000 live in the capital Bratislava.
The area was for a long time part of the Hungarian Empire, where Bratislava was the capital for a while. When Austria-Hungary was divided after the First World War, the Slovaks were brought together with their Czech neighbors in the newly created Czechoslovakia.
After the fall of the communist regime, the country was divided again from January 1, 1993. In the spring of 2004, Slovakia became a member of both NATO (March 29) and the EU (May 1). From 1 January 2009, the euro is the currency.