Opposition Poised to Rule, Bring Change to Slovakia

Triumphant opposition leaders claimed victory Sunday after two days of voting for a new Slovakian parliament, predicting they will soon take power in a transition that could strengthen this nation’s democracy and speed its entry into European institutions.

Four allied opposition parties won 93 of 150 seats in the Friday and Saturday balloting, according to early results announced Sunday. As long as the alliance sticks together, that is enough to easily form a government and even revise the constitution of this half of the former Czechoslovakia, which split in 1993.

Among individual parties, however, Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar’s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia finished in first place, winning 27% of the vote to capture 43 seats.

In a system where the top finisher normally gets first chance to try to form a government, that could give Meciar a chance to stay in power by drawing support from other parties and individual legislators. But that possibility, feared by some opposition supporters, seemed to be rapidly fading Sunday.

Opposition leaders met in the afternoon and “expressed a common will to form a new Slovak government,” Mikulas Dzurinda, head of the strongest opposition party, the Slovak Democratic Coalition, told a news conference given by all four of the party chiefs. Dzurinda’s party won 42 seats with 26% of the vote.

Dzurinda, 43, is seen as the opposition’s almost certain choice to succeed Meciar, who has faced sharp criticism at home and abroad for being undemocratic in many of his actions.

One oft-cited example of Meciar’s authoritarian leanings is the openly pro-ruling-party bias of state-run television. The government also has been accused of using physical intimidation against opponents.

The political shortcomings of Meciar’s government were cited by the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as part of their decision to keep Slovakia off the fast track to join them. Under a new government, Slovakia could expect smoother entry into both.

“I believe that Slovakia will be able to offer Europe and the world an absolutely new face,” Dzurinda said Sunday. “The democratic opposition has a constitutional majority [sufficient to rewrite the country’s basic law], and we are able to form a new government. So I am ready to be the next prime minister.”

The current ruling party did not concede defeat, however.

Sergej Kozlik, a vice chairman of Meciar’s party, told a news conference that his party was the winner because it came in first. It would try to put together a ruling coalition, he said.

The Slovak National Party, a partner with Meciar in the current ruling coalition, took 9% of the vote to win 14 seats, according to the results released Sunday by the Central Electoral Commission.

Even with the support of the Slovak National Party, Meciar is still 19 seats short of the majority he would need to stay in office. It is widely believed that he might woo some individual legislators to join his camp, but few observers think he can win enough defectors from the opposition to make up for a shortfall of this size.

Especially critical for Meciar’s hopes would be the stance of the Party of the Democratic Left, created by reformist former Communists, which won 23 seats with 15% of the vote. The party has been seen as the weakest link in the opposition alliance, but its leader, Jozef Migas, was firm Sunday in rejecting any coalition with Meciar as “unacceptable.”

The other parties expected to form a new ruling coalition are the Hungarian Coalition party, which won 15 seats with 9% of the vote, and the Party of Civic Understanding, which won 13 seats with 8% of the vote.