This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/slovaks-vote-in-parliamentary-election/2016/03/05/38da4022-e2ac-11e5-8c00-8aa03741dced_story.html
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Slovaks vote in parliamentary election | Slovaks vote in parliamentary election |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Polls opened on Saturday in Slovakia’s parliamentary election with the ruling party of Prime Minister Robert Fico campaigning on an anti-migrant ticket. | |
| The leftist Smer-Social Democracy party is a clear favorite but analysts say Fico may have misjudged the public mood by focusing too much on Europe’s migration crisis and not enough on Slovakia’s own issues. | The leftist Smer-Social Democracy party is a clear favorite but analysts say Fico may have misjudged the public mood by focusing too much on Europe’s migration crisis and not enough on Slovakia’s own issues. |
| In the 2012 vote, Smer won a landslide, taking 44.4 percent of the vote. That allowed the party to govern alone, the first time one party has held sole power in Slovakia since the 1993 split of Czechoslovakia. | |
| Fico favors a strong state role in the economy, has been critical of Western sanctions against Russia and is known for strong anti-Muslim rhetoric. Slovakia has not been part of the European route that hundreds of thousands of refugees are using — but Fico has still made it the central tenet of his campaign. | |
| He is a vocal opponent of a compulsory EU plan to redistribute refugees in member states and is suing the EU over it. | |
| Polls indicate Fico’s party will get well above 30 percent, but that would mean he needs a coalition partner to govern. That could be the ultra-Nationalist Slovak National Party, which hopes to return to Parliament after a four-year absence. | Polls indicate Fico’s party will get well above 30 percent, but that would mean he needs a coalition partner to govern. That could be the ultra-Nationalist Slovak National Party, which hopes to return to Parliament after a four-year absence. |
| President Andrej Kiska called on the Slovaks to come to the ballots. | |
| “Everyone who cares about Slovakia should vote,” Kiska said after casting his ballot in the northern city of Poprad. | |
| Fico said he was ready “to respect any result.” | |
| Five other parties, including a party of ethnic Hungarians, have a chance to win parliamentary seats in Saturday’s election, polls predicted. The Net party established by Radoslav Prochazka, a conservative lawmaker who went to Yale Law School, is the only one of them expected to win more than 10 percent. | |
| If Fico’s victory is not big enough, the five parties could possibly form a coalition to get a majority and send Fico into opposition. | |
| Parliament’s 150 seats are at stake, with 23 parties in the running. | Parliament’s 150 seats are at stake, with 23 parties in the running. |
| Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |