Posted on 09/22/2002 10:30:37 AM PDT by tellw
Slovakia heading for EU-friendly government after election [original title]
Slovakia was set to have a moderate center-right government that can lead the former communist state into the EU and NATO, despite hardline nationalist Vladimir Meciar winning the general election, according to official results.
Outgoing Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) finished a surprising second in the voting Friday and Saturday and was well placed to form a ruling Christian Democrat-Liberal coalition in the eastern European country.
Dzurinda on Sunday called the results "a victory of citizens who want to enter into the EU and NATO."
European Commission representative in Bratislava Eric van der Linden said the election results "clearly show the population was aware not only of the domestic political issues but also of foreign policy issues."
Van der Linden said he thought the European Commission would in its upcoming evaluation October 9 on candidate countries "be able to make a definitively positive assessment of Slovakia."
The EU wants to conclude negotiations for all 10 candidate countries for accession in 2004 by the end of the year, while NATO is to decide on who will join the defense alliance in Prague on November 21-22.
Meciar, whom the United States and European nations consider would be an obstacle to Slovakia joining the EU and NATO, won 19.5 percent of the vote, officials from the government's Central Election Bureau told a press conference.
But Meciar is isolated politically and does not have the coalition partners needed to form a new government.
Dzurinda's showing of 15.1 percent was unexpectedly strong. Voters had been said to be discontented with his government since this country of 5.4 million people is suffering from record levels of unemployment.
The main vote-getters had been expected to be Meciar and the populist Robert Fico, who had been tipped to be the next prime minister, but Fico's Smer (The Way) party faltered in third place with 13.46 percent.
This left Dzurinda in the driver's seat to form a parliamentary majority with three other conservative parties, and without Smer.
Fico is considered by many to be a "second Meciar," for his hard-line positions, particularly against the country's gypsy minority.
Ivo Samson of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association think tank told AFP a four-party coalition would have a narrow majority of 78 seats in the 150-seat parliament but that this would be a more stable grouping than if it had a larger majority which included Smer.
Dzurinda said Sunday that he wanted the four-party coalition and thought a majority of 78 "was enough to do good work."
Meciar, who led Slovakia to independence and was prime minister from 1994-1998, is not acceptable to the United States and EU since his government did not, in the words of US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, "demonstrate a commitment to democracy and the rule of law."
Meciar's score was far below the 27 percent he won in the last elections in 1998, when he was unable to form a government, and the 30 percent of voting intentions his party enjoyed in opinion polls only months ago.
Slovakians see their country's inclusion in the European Union as essential for a better life because it would bring in hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in subsidies.
Unemployment was running at 19 percent in the first half of 2002, and budget deficits persist.
The seventh and only other of the 24 parties running to win over five percent of the vote needed to enter parliament was the Slovak Communist Party (KSS), which had 6.32 percent of the vote.
It was a surprise success for the communists who enter parliament for the first time since independence.
This is considered "center-right"?
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