Slovakia: OLaNO anti-corruption party tops legislative elections

Text by: RFI Follow

In Slovakia, the first estimates published this Saturday February 29 give the liberal party OLaNO winner of the legislative elections, in front of the social-democratic party SMER of the former Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Publicity

With our correspondent in Bratislava, Alexis Rosenzweig

The defeat had been announced, it is nonetheless tragic for Robert Fico. A survey carried out at the end of the polling stations places his party in second position in the legislative elections , far behind the OLaNO party of Igor Matovic which collects 25.8% of the votes. Contrary to what some polls predicted, the xenophobic party LSNS of Marian Kotleba remains below 10%.

Robert Fico, who has dominated the Slovak political scene for many years, has seen his name and the names of several collaborators involved in some of the biggest corruption scandals that the country has known since joining the European Union in 2004. Implicated after the assassination of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancée two years ago, he had to let a loved one replace him at the head of the government , but retained power behind the scenes. It now seems over after this election, which echoes the victory of anti-corruption lawyer Zuzana Caputova in the presidential election last year.

It is now up to several liberal parties to come to an agreement to form a government, probably led by Igor Matovic, leader of a motley formation who has promised the Slovaks to rid them of a " mafia system ".

The electoral campaign was marked by the trial of the assassins of the young couple and the revelations about the extent of the politico-judicial network of the alleged sponsor. During this electoral campaign, the head of OLaNO (Slovak acronym of Ordinary people and independent personalities) had not hesitated to go to France, to Cannes, in front of the luxurious villa of a former minister of Robert Fico, to stick on the door of the posters affirming that it was about the inheritance of Slovakia since, according to him, it had been " bought with diverted public money ".

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