BRATISLAVA: Slovak voters handed a resounding victory to the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO opposition party in Saturday’s general election, dominated by an angry backlash over the 2018 murder of a journalist probing corruption in the eurozone state.

Having vowed to immediately push through anti-corruption measures when in office, OLaNO leader Igor Matovic galvanised voter outrage over the murder of Jan Kuciak and his fiancée and the high-level graft their deaths exposed.

“We will try to create the best government Slovakia has ever had, with the help of the other leaders of the democratic opposition,” Matovic told journalists as he claimed victory after the exit poll results were announced.

“It was the death of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova that woke up Slovakia.” Outgoing Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini conceded defeat as partial official results showed OLaNO outpacing his populist-left Smer-SD by six percentage points.

“Congratulations to the election winner, good health, good luck,” Pellegrini told Matovic, adding “he has good marketing, but we will be interested in how he will handle his office.” OLaNO took 24.87 per cent of the vote ahead of 18.73pc for the governing populist-left Smer-SD party, while the conservative We Are Family scored 8.34pc, the liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) won 5.67pc and the fellow liberal “For the People” of ex-president Andrej Kiska mustered 5.43pc of the vote, according to returns from 82.76pc of polling stations.

The result suggests Smer-SD lacks obvious coalition partners as it has ruled out teaming up with the far-right Our Slovakia LSNS party, which scored 8.27pc support.

When asked by journalists about a possible coalition with OLaNO, Pellegrini quipped “never say never”.

“But you have to put this question to Igor Matovic whether he would be willing to do so or not,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2020