Slovak Voters Reject Western Capitalism : Europe: Preliminary results show former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar returning to power.

Voters here issued a clear rebuke of Western-style capitalism Saturday, handing the party of former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar a strong election victory, according to preliminary results and exit polls after two days of voting.

Meciar, who was ousted from power in March amid allegations of corruption and obstructing Slovakia’s economic reforms, was expected to fall short of winning an absolute majority. But his likely coalition partners were doing well enough to ensure a Meciar-led government control of the 150-seat Slovak Parliament.

“These results are in total opposition to the principles of a market economy,” said Iveta Radicova of the Institute for Central European Studies. “The majority of voters are saying what they really want is state paternalism--a continued strong role of the state.”

Unofficial results showed Meciar’s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia collecting nearly 34% of the vote, more than triple the tally of second-place Common Choice, one of several parties that have been governing since Meciar’s 2-year-old government was toppled in the spring.

Meciar, a former amateur boxer and two-time prime minister, had been plotting his comeback almost since the moment he lost his job. In appeals heavy on patriotism and personal charisma, he has visited villages and workplaces across the economically depressed country promising everything from higher retirement benefits to tougher policies against Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarians.

“Above all, we showed voters that we wanted to continue the path we started in 1992,” Augustin Marian Huska of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia told Slovak television Saturday night.

The outgoing caretaker government had won praise from Western governments and economic organizations for putting Slovakia back on a path of economic transformation. But voters, apparently frustrated by the hardship of moving from communism to capitalism, turned once again to Meciar, who has pledged to soften the blow by cutting taxes and keeping government control of many state-owned enterprises.

“What we expected is being confirmed,” said Prime Minister Jozef Moravcik, who defected from the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia in March after becoming disillusioned with Meciar. “Six months is too short a time to change political conditions.”

Milan Ftacnik, an official with the Party of the Democratic Left, accused Meciar of winning over Slovaks with “cheap promises” and populist rhetoric that promises only to further isolate Slovakia from its European neighbors.

Ftacnik, a former Communist, warned that Meciar and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia have yet to demonstrate that they can provide the political stability sorely lacking in Slovakia since the breakup of Czechoslovakia almost two years ago.

“They have shown that they can win elections but cannot govern on a basis of coalition,” he said.

Moravcik and other political leaders, appearing Saturday evening on televised round-table discussions, said it was still possible for a broad-based coalition of Meciar’s opponents to form a government. Meciar’s critics had warned during the campaign that his return would spell economic and political disaster for Slovakia, a fear that had been real enough to bring together former Communists and the religious right in the caretaker government.

But the likelihood of another anti-Meciar coalition grew increasingly unlikely as results were tallied. Early projections showed that one potential coalition partner was not even garnering the 5% of votes needed for parties to enter Parliament, while the other parties were all faring worse than pre-election surveys had predicted.

“It is a disappointment for us,” said Frantisek Miklosko, deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement, one of the governing coalition partners.

Official results will not be available until today, but in the meantime Meciar is expected to begin pulling together a possible coalition, which will likely include the Slovak National Party and the Assn. of Workers of Slovakia, a splinter group of former Communists. Together, projections show, the parties would control more than 80 seats in the Parliament.