“Hungary is ready to further reinforce cooperation between the countries of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia)”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said with relation to the Slovakian parliamentary elections on his Facebook page on Sunday.

“The countries of the Visegrád Group have gained significant strength in recent years. They form an effective and close alliance within the European Union. Thanks to this rational government policy, the region has become the engine of European economic growth, while it has also been able to defend itself and maintain its security”, Mr. Szijjártó wrote.

In reply to a question from Hungarian news agency MTI, the Minster said: “Slovakian Hungarians have made it clear that they wish to be represented on a purely national basis in Slovakian politics”.

Six parties won a place in Slovakian Parliament at Saturday’s elections based on the processing of 99 percent of the votes. The right-wing opposition Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) party finished in first place with some 25 percent of the votes cast.

The governing centre-left Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SD) party won 18.3 percent of the votes, its worst result to date. The centre-right We Are Family party led by businessman Boris Kollár came in third with 8.3 percent of the votes. Fourth place went to the Kotlebists People’s Party Our Slovakia party, a self-proclaimed radical party based on national, Christian and social values, which gained 8 percent of the votes.

The strongest opposition group so far, Richard Sulik’s classical liberal For the People party, finished in fifth place with 6.1 percent of the votes. The centrist liberal party led by former head of state Andrej Kiska won a place in Slovakia’s 150-member parliament in sixth place, with 5.7 percent of the votes.

The Hungarian Community Association (MKÖ), the strongest member of which is the Party of Hungarian Community, acquired 3.9 percent of the votes, while the Most-Híd (Bridge) Slovak-Hungarian inter-ethnic party received 2.05 percent of the votes cast.

(MTI)