March 11, 2012 • Left-Leaning Party Wins Slovakia Election
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Slovaks, angered by a corruption scandal and weary of government austerity measures, threw their support in weekend parliamentary elections behind a left-leaning politician who has pledged to raise taxes on companies and the wealthy.
Robert Fico’s Smer-Social Democracy party won a clear legislative majority, capturing 83 of the 150 seats in the national assembly—the first time since independence in 1993 that a single party has received enough votes to govern on its own, without coalition partners.
The victory for the Slovak left is a sign of mounting frustration among Europeans who have endured years of budget cuts and have yet …