AECR members Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and NOVA won the second and third largest share of seats in yesterday’s Slovakian parliamentary elections. Official figures gave SaS 12.1% of the vote and NOVA, listed together with Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OL’aNO), 11.0%. The parties will now take 21 and 19 seats respectively in the 150-seat parliament.
AECR President Jan Zahradil congratulated SaS and NOVA on their election result, stating:
The outcome of the Slovakian elections represents a big success for our pan-European Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. Our member SaS and OL’aNO-NOVA together achieved more than twenty percent of the votes and ranked second and third, which reaffirms the popularity of our reality-based approach towards the European Union and a strengthening of opposition to eurofederalism.
On the other hand this election saw the failure of parties represented in the European People’s Party, backed by names such as Juncker and Merkel.
I congratulate our partners and friends in SaS and OL’aNO-NOVA. I am happy that eurorealism will now have a stronger voice in Slovakia.
Prime Minister Robert Fico’s ruling leftist Smer-Social Democracy party still won the election with 28.3% (49 seats), but it achieved 16% less than it did in 2012 and will now be forced to govern in a coalition. Any centre-right coalition would have to include SaS and NOVA-OL’aNO.
Slovakia will take over the EU’s rotating presidency from July 2016, making the outcome of Saturday’s vote all the more significant.