Slovokia opposition leading in preliminary election results

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – Preliminary results from Saturday’s parliamentary election show Slovakia’s opposition with a comfortable lead.

With the votes from about 75% of the almost 6,000 polling stations counted by the Statistics Office early Sunday, the conservative Ordinary People group was capturing 24.8% of the vote or 52 seats in the 150-seat Parliament.

The senior ruling leftist Smer-Social Democracy party led by former populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was in second with 18.9% of the vote.

Smer has won big in every election since 2006. If the results hold, they would represent a drop in support from the 2016 election when Smer took 28.3% of the vote.

In what would be a further blow for Smer, its two current coalition partners, the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party and a party of ethnic Hungarians looked like they wouldn’t win any seats.

Slovakia’s local ally of France’s far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen, a conservative populist group We Are Family was capturing 8.4% of the vote.

It was running neck and neck with an extreme far-right party whose members use Nazi salutes and which wants Slovakia out of the European Union and NATO.

The pro-business Freedom and Solidarity party was getting 5.6% of the vote, while a new party established by former President Andrej Kiska, For People, was getting 5.4%.