Monday, June 02, 2025
45.0°F

Slovakia's election winner to form 4-party government

The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 2 months AGO
by The Associated Press
| March 14, 2020 11:07 AM

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — The chairman of the winning party in Slovakia's parliamentary election told the country’s president Saturday that he has agreed to form a coalition government with three other parties.

Igor Matovic and his center-right populist opposition group Ordinary People captured 25% of the Feb. 29 vote. It has 53 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

President Zuzana Caputova asked Matovic on March 4 to lead the efforts to create a new government.

After their meeting on Saturday, Matovic said he presented the details of his Cabinet to the president. It is not clear when the new government might be sworn in.

Caputova didn’t immediately comment. Matovic and Caputova are scheduled to meet again on Monday.

Matovic agreed to govern with the pro-business Freedom and Solidarity party; the conservative For People, a party established by former President Andrej Kiska; and We Are Family, a populist right-wing group that is allied with France's far-right National Rally party.

The victory for Ordinary People ended the reign of a long-dominant but scandal-tainted leftist party and analysts said that showed a strong desire by voters to end corruption.

The Smer-Social Democracy party led by the sitting prime minister, Robert Fico, came in second with 18.3%, or 38 seats. Fico’s party was damaged by political turmoil following the 2018 slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

The pro-western Matovic, 46, has made fighting corruption and attacking Fico the central tenets of his campaign.

MORE IMPORTED STORIES

Slovakia's election winner to form 4-party government
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 5 years, 2 months ago
Chairman of winning party in Slovak vote to form government
Daily Inter-Lake | Updated 5 years, 2 months ago
Chairman of winning party in Slovak vote to form government
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 5 years, 2 months ago

ARTICLES BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 9, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland

WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

September 8, 2021 12:03 a.m.

The Latest: Top Republican says Taliban holding Americans

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says some Americans who have been trying to get out of Afghanistan since the U.S. military left are sitting in airplanes at an airport ready to leave but the Taliban are not letting them take off.