Slovakia elections: Anti-immigration Prime Minister Robert Fico faces hard fight to secure leftist coalition

Gains by opposition parties will make it hard if not impossible for him to form a new coalition government

Slovakia's Prime Minister and leader of Smer party Robert Fico leaves after a live broadcast of a debate after the country's parliamentary election, in Bratislava, Slovakia (Reuters)

The virulently anti-immigration Prime Minister Robert Fico has won Slovakia’s general election, but gains by opposition parties including the far right will make it hard if not impossible for him to form a new coalition government.

If Mr Fico fails to put together a government led by his leftist Smer party, a group of centre-right parties could try to form a broad but possibly unstable anti-Fico coalition in a repeat of 2010.

Mr Fico, a leftist whose anti-immigration and socially conservative views are in line with neighbours Poland and Hungary, took 28.3 per cent of the vote. With Slovakia due to take over the EU’s rotating presidency from July, giving it a bigger role in policy discussions over the bloc’s migration crisis, the election is being watched closely in Brussels.

Mr Fico bet on a combination of popular welfare measures such as free train rides for students and pensioners and his opposition to accepting refugees. He had hoped to rule with one smaller coalition partner, but now says the process “will not be easy”.

Reuters