SLOVAKIA: Prospects for a smooth expansion of the EU and Nato into Central and Eastern Europe were boosted at the weekend when Slovak voters snubbed nationalists and populists in favour of a pro-Western coalition of moderates.
In a crucial election determining the country's chances of joining the two key Western clubs, the Slovaks turned their backs on the formidable former prime minister, Mr Vladimir Meciar, after loud warnings from the West that a vote for him would be a vote for international isolation.
EU ambassadors in the capital, Bratislava, were quick yesterday to applaud the voters' choice in Slovakia's most important election since the collapse of communism in 1989 and the break-up of Czechoslovakia three years later.
The election looks likely to leave the government largely unchanged, adding a further partner to the outgoing three-party centre-right coalition under Prime Minister Mr Mikulas Dzurinda.
Although the Slovaks opted for the centre-right, bucking the recent regional trend of left-wing ascendancy in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, they also joined the regional trend by electing a government committed to EU membership.
"The results ... show the ambitions of Slovaks to join both the EU and Nato," the country's President, Mr Rudolf Schuster, said.
Mr Meciar nonetheless remains the country's most popular politician and his HZDS party emerged as the strongest single party in a highly fragmented political scene, taking almost 20 per cent of the vote. That showing, however, is a third down on the election in 1998, and the other major players have pledged to exclude him from the horse-trading to form a coalition.
The expected coalition of Christian democrats and liberals is able to muster 78 seats in the 150-seat parliament, a slim majority which may not be stable enough to survive predictable coalition rows.-(Guardian service)