Sawt Falasteen - Slovaks head to tight polls mulling Ukraine aid

Polling stations across the EU and NATO member of 5.4 million people will open at 0500 GMT and close at 2000 GMT, with exit polls expected shortly afterwards and the final results due on Sunday morning.

Two parties fared equally well in the final opinion polls -- the left-wing Smer-SD of populist former premier Robert Fico and the centrist Progressive Slovakia of European Parliament vice-speaker Michal Simecka.

Both parties scored around 20 percent backing, which means the likely election winner will need help from smaller parties to form a majority coalition in the 150-seat parliament.

The new government will replace a wobbly centre-right coalition in power since 2020, which has seen three cabinets installed over the period.

In the heated election campaign involving several brawls between candidates, Fico has taken aim at the EU and NATO as well as the LGBTQ+ minority.

He has also rejected providing any further military aid to Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.

Simecka has vowed to rid Slovakia of "the past", with reference to Fico's three terms as prime minister in 2006-2010 and 2012-2018, and is urging Slovaks to "elect the future".

"These elections, I think they are deciding about the future orientation of our country in foreign policy, defence and security policy, but also about... the future of democracy," independent political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov told AFP.

- 'Elimination method' -

The campaign was marked by disinformation affecting half of the nation, according to analyses.

Even during the two-day campaign moratorium ahead of the vote, Simecka was targeted by a deepfake video.

Sitting on a park bench in central Bratislava with a friend, one voter, Sona Hankina, said she would back Progressive Slovakia after using an "elimination method" -- for lack of a better option.

"The stakes are high, but it's obvious that nothing will really change," the young woman told AFP.

"If I didn't have a little daughter, I would not even live in this country. So it's primarily because of her that I'll go to the polls."

Slovak President Zuzana Caputova told AFP she would tap the election winner to form the next cabinet.

The choice of coalition partners is fairly broad, with 11 parties expected to win parliamentary seats.

- 'More or less equal' -

Fico is likely to woo Smer-SD's spin-off Hlas-SD, led by former Smer-SD vice-chairman Peter Pellegrini.

Pellegrini replaced Fico as premier in 2018 after Fico had to step down amid nationwide protests following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.

Kuciak uncovered links between the Italian mafia and Fico's government in his last article published posthumously.

Also rejecting Ukraine aid, Fico's other potential partners are the newly formed far-right Republic and the Slovak National Party (SNS), with whom he had already ruled twice.

Progressive Slovakia will in turn be looking at the parties of the outgoing centre-right coalition -- Freedom and Solidarity, OLaNO, We Are Family and For People.

"Today, the positions of both groupings, national populist and pro-democratic, are more or less equal concerning the support of these parties," said Meseznikov.

"But the advantage of the anti-system forces is that they are less fragmented and... more consolidated."

J.AbuShaban--SF-PST