"Leftist Party Wins Slovak Elections"

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - Slovakia's opposition leftist party won parliamentary elections, tapping into widespread public discontent over eight years of austere economic reforms, authorities said Sunday.

Robert Fico's Smer-Socialist Democratic Party won 29 percent of the votes, compared to 18 percent for Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Movement, the state-run Statistical Office announced after counting all the ballots.

Fico's victory was not enough to give his party a parliamentary majority, forcing him to form a coalition government.

But the outcome was a stinging rebuke to Dzurinda's center-right government, which brought the ex-communist nation into the European Union and NATO but slashed health care and social benefits to millions. The result also threw into doubt Slovakia's quest to adopt the euro currency in 2009.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060618/D8IAHC200.html