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Champagne flows at opposition party headquarters; Fico accepts prospect of losing powerBrought to you in cooperation with TV SME.
It was one of the most often-repeated statements by analysts after elections – “if you had told me that Slovaks would elect a right-wing government on Saturday, I wouldn’t have believed you.” But with 79 seats in the 150-seat parliament, four centre-right parties have a narrow majority, and have already begun talks on forming the next administration .
So what of the incumbent government? For starters, if these elections really are the end of Vladimír Mečiar and his HZDS party, whose aging voter base has so far not showed signs of renewal, it looks like someone forgot to tell the three-time former prime minister. The HZDS scored 4.3 percent in the 2010 ballot, only half what it drew four years ago .
As for Mr Fico, on Sunday he was empowered by President Ivan Gasparovic with forming a new government, in accordance with Slovak election custom. However, as the four centre-right opposition parties had already ruled out working with Fico , he acknowledged the likelihood that Smer would be forced into opposition, where he promised the party would strongly oppose the policies of a new right-wing government.
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