Slovak voters back leader NATO hates By Eric Johnson >From the International Desk Published 9/21/2002 4:25 PM
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- The party of a strong-arm politician spurned by NATO leaders apparently won Slovakia's parliamentary election but failed to garner enough votes for government control. Exit polls by public Slovak Radio and the polling agency MVK, released Saturday evening shortly after the two-day election, suggested voters had chosen former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia HZDS over the West-friendly parties of incumbent Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda and populist lawyer Robert Fico. Yet neither poll gave Meciar's party more than 19 percent of the vote, and discussions among several rival party leaders began Saturday night with the goal of locking him out by forming a multiparty, ruling coalition. "There is hope for a good arrangement," Dzurinda told reporters after voting ended. Final results from the government's election commission were expected Sunday. The leader of the ethnic Hungarian party, Belan Bugar of SMK, proposed a five-party alliance that included Dzurinda's SDKU and Fico's Smer parties. In Brussels, the E.U.'s rapporteur for Slovakia Jan Wiersman said he was confident the election would lead to a pro-western government. However, NATO and U.S. leaders including Secretary General George Robertson have been warning since last year that a victory for Meciar would dash Slovakia's chances for joining the military alliance with several other former Soviet countries this fall. E.U. leaders and heads of E.U.-member countries also frowned on Meciar, fearing his return to power would hurt his small country's nearly completed application for E.U. membership in 2004. Meciar recently voiced support for NATO and E.U. membership. He also promised more jobs for his country's post-communist economy, which is burdened by crumbling factories and 18 percent unemployment. But for years, including Meciar's 1992-'98 reign as prime minister, this tough-talking former boxer promoted an anti-West stance. Charges that Meciar practiced cronyism and even played a role in kidnapping a former president's son were among the reasons western leaders decided his government couldn't be trusted. Thus, Slovakia was not invited to a 1997 NATO summit that led to admission of neighboring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Last week Slovak President Rudolf Schuster, who beat Meciar in the 1999 presidential race, said he would use his constitutional powers to guarantee that the next government and premier were pro-E.U. and pro-NATO. It was a signal that Meciar and his party would be barred, even if they won the election. But any coalition must include at least half of the deputies in the 150-seat parliament. Slovak Radio estimated Meciar's HZDS won 16 percent of the vote, Fico's Smer 15 percent, Dzurinda's SDKU 14 percent and Bugar's SMK 9 percent. The MVK poll gave Meciar 18 percent, SDKU 15 percent, Smer 14 percent and SMK 10 percent. Other parties that scored well -- and might be invited to join a ruling coalition -- including the Christian Democratic Movement KDH and the ANO party of media mogul Pavel Rusko. http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=20020921-031144-9168r Copyright C 2002 United Press International Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
