Populist pro-Moscow party wins Slovak vote

A populist pro-Moscow party that wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the EU and Nato has won Slovakia's election, results showed yesterday. The Smer-SD party led by former prime minister Robert Fico scored 23.3 percent, beating the centrist Progressive Slovakia on 17 percent, with almost all votes counted. Analysts predict a Fico government could radically change Slovakia's foreign policy to resemble that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The 59-year-old Fico has vowed that Slovakia will not send "a single round of ammunition" to Ukraine and has called for better relations with Russia. "Slovakia will now be closer to the Hungarian approach than that of the majority of Europe," Slovakia analyst Tomas Koziak from the University of Political Sciences in the Czech city Kutna Hora told AFP. "In Robert Fico, Orban will get a new ally," Koziak added. Smer is set to clinch 42 seats in the 150-member parliament and so will need coalition partners for a majority. The leftwing Hlas-SDquit Fico's party is one potential partner with an expected 27 seats.