Slovakia Approaches Crucial Elections

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - The people of Slovakia go to the polls next month in elections which analysts say could have a decisive impact on everything from the country`s prospects of joining the European Union to the fate of its currency. "This is the decisi

ve election for Slovakia for a very long time to come. A lot is going to come down to who ends up in power after these elections," Kieran Williams, lecturer in politics at the University of London`s School of Slavonic and East European studies told Reuters. Slovakia has acquired a reputation as the bad boy of former communist central and eastern Europe. Apart from criticism of Slovakia`s treatment of its 500,000 strong ethnic Hungarian minority, the EU and the United States have expressed particular concern at the government`s commitment to the rule of law and the failure of parliament to vote in a new president for six months. Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar`s populist nationalist government says foreign criticism is based on misinterpretion and anti-Slovak bias. According to opinion polls the combined opposition should win the elections, which take place over two days on September 25 and 26, with a commanding majority. The most recent polls have given the four party opposition leads of more than 20 percent over the coalition government. With this outcome in mind, attention is focused largely on whether the elections will be fair and if any oppositon coalition government could in fact hold together. Concerns that the government may try to skew the vote in its favour increased earlier this month when Mečiar`s party applied, unsuccessfully, to the supreme court to have the main opposition party excluded from the vote. The application was based on a clause within a controversial new election law which was passed in May. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is preparing to monitor the elections and the European Union says it will pay close attention to the way they are conducted. As to whether any opposition government could hold together, most analysts questioned by Reuters agreed that what has united them in opposition may well keep them together in government - fear and dislike of Mečiar. The opposition is made up of four groupings, the largest of which, the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), is comprised of five other parties. Foreign investors see the elections as a crossroads in the development of Slovakia`s emerging economy. With growth roaring ahead at six percent a year, the government is able to claim a better record than almost any other eastern European country. However, Slovakia is running a huge current account deficit and the perception of high political risk has frightened away much foreign investment. The stock market, for instance, often posts a daily turnover of no more than a million dollars. Ján Tóth, an economist at Tatra Banka, said there was even the possibility of a boom on the stock market if the opposition wins. Whatever the outcome, many economists predict that a new government will move fast to devalue, or at least allow a depreciation of the crown in order to remedy the balance payments problems. The current account deficit totalled $458 million in the first quarter of 1998, or around nine percent of gross domestic product. In its July east European economic research bulletin, Nomura said it expected a 10 percent devaluation by the end of the year.

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