Anti-immigration PM wins Slovakian election but loses majority

Slovak prime minister Robert Fico’s leftist-nationalist party has won the general election, according to almost complete results. However, gains by opposition parties including far-right extremists will complicate formation of a new government, according to reports.

Fico will now need to find coalition partners to return for a third term, after gains by small parties, including an extreme right one, may produce a divided parliament.

International reports claim that Fico has vowed not to accept "one single Muslim" migrant, and his hardline views on migration echo those of Polish, Czech and Hungarian leaders.

Slovakia takes over the EU's rotating presidency, giving it a bigger role in EU policy discussions over the migration crisis.

Fico took 28.7% of the vote, far ahead of others but less than around 35% predicted in opinion polls.

In all, nine parties, including the far-right Our Slovakia, led by Marian Kotleba and which took over 8% of the vote, will be represented in parliament.

The BBC adds that Kotleba is an unrepentant admirer of Slovakia's wartime existence as a Nazi puppet state, and until recently dressed in a uniform modelled on that state's pro-Nazi militia.

Some 50% of the vote has been counted so far revealing that Fico’s Smer-Social Democracy party is on about 29% support, giving it 48 seats in the 150-member parliament.

Fico, 51, is known for populist policies such as free train travel for students and pensioners, and he has fiercely opposed EU quotas on migrant resettlement from Greece and Italy, which would see his country take about 2,600 people. Slovakia received only 260 asylum requests last year.