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Slovakia holds early parliamentary elections

11 March 2012 01:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Polling stations in Slovakia opened Saturday morning with some 4.3 million eligible voters having the opportunity to elect lawmakers from 26 political parties and movements for the 150-member Parliament, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"This is the most important vote since 1990, when the first free general election took place in Czechoslovakia," President Ivan Gasparovic said in Bratislava after casting his vote.

Last October, the Slovak parliament failed to ratify a bill on the expansion of European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the government fell in a confidence vote, triggering the early elections.

According to Gasparovic, the future government will have to take very responsible decisions in relation to the European Union and when it comes to pressing social and economic issues.

"The politicians who will sit in the future government maybe haven’t realised yet that Slovakia will have a very important role in 2014 - it will hold the EU presidency," Gasparovic pointed out.

All recent opinion polls show that the Social Democrats (Smer-SD) is enjoying the highest voters support reaching up to 40 percent. The hottest question seems to be whether Smer will garner enough votes to govern on its own or will need a coalition partner.

According to Smer-SD chairman Robert Fico, if the party fails to gain at least around 80 seats in Parliament, they will try to form a coalition with some other parliamentary party (and have a constitutional majority).

Apart from Smer-SD, the only party having almost certain chances of powering through the 5-percent threshold is the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH).

The remaining potential winning parties are: Most-Hid, SDKU-DS, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), Ordinary People -Independents, all incline to the right.

The left wing is represented by newcomer 99 % - People’s Voice, which has been doing quite well in the polls, and by Slovak National Party (SNS), which has been falling deeply under 5 percent in many recent polls.

According to the law, every Slovak citizen over 18 on the election day at the very latest is eligible.

Slovaks with a permanent residence in Slovakia or any foreign country for that matter are able to cast their votes via post from abroad. These voters were required to deliver their filled ballot papers to authorities by March 10 - a day before the election.

Police have been deployed on the streets to secure law and order during the vote. There are 40 observers from Belarus organisation Belarus Watch monitoring the election, while Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is not organising a mission this time.

First unofficial poll results are to be published by the Statistics Office through internet after the polling stations close at 10 p.m. local time. Official results will be published on Sunday morning.

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Slovakia holds early parliamentary elections

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