(Repeating story from late Thursday)
* Five right-wing opposition parties may topple centre-left
* Prime Minister Fico's SMER party drops to 29.5 pct support
* Fiscal consolidation, Hungarian relations in spotlight
By Martin Santa
BRATISLAVA, June 10 (Reuters) - Slovakia's centre-right
opposition may topple leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico in an
election on Saturday with a pledge to put the euro zone's
poorest member back on a firm path of reform.
Voters are split between economic liberals whose reforms led
Slovakia into the European Union and drew billions in foreign
investment, and Fico, whose tough stance against big business
and efforts to protect workers appeal to poorer Slovaks.
Despite Slovakia's 4.7 percent economic contraction last
year, Fico's SMER party may still emerge the biggest single vote
getter and he has said he could cut a new power-sharing deal
with his partners, the far-right Nationalists and the HZDS party
of former authoritarian prime minister Vladimir Meciar.
But a poll on Thursday showed support for the SMER had
declined almost 6 percentage points in June to 29.5 percent
[], while five centre-right parties for the first
time appeared poised to win a combined majority in parliament.
The liberal SaS has pulled ahead of SDKU, the party that
spearheaded pro-market reforms from 1998 to 2006.
SaS and its leader, Richard Sulik, have shot up in
popularity on pledges to make further sweeping reforms of taxes
and benefits and halt the growth in debt.
Slovakia has debt of 35.7 percent of GDP, much lower than
other euro zone members, but it has been rising fast.
Fico's public standing has suffered from years of
acrimonious clashes with Slovak media, and he and his rivals
have openly accused one another of corruption.
"We can say the electorate is divided 50:50, between the
left and the right," said Grigorij Meseznikov, director of the
Institute for Public Affairs think-tank.
EUROZONE ENTRY LAST YEAR
After defeating right-wing SDKU Prime Minister Mikulas
Dzurinda in the 2006 election, Fico led Slovakia into the euro
zone in 2009, presided over booming growth and backed away from
pledges to undo the previous government's reforms.
But he also halted privatisations, forced foreign-owned
utilities to cap their prices, rolled back some reforms making
it easier for firms to hire and fire workers, and stoked
long-brewing ethnic tensions with neighbour Hungary.
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For feature on Slovak-Hungarian relations see []
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Analysts say that, with living standards at 72 percent of
the EU average, Slovakia needs to boost productivity and lure
new investments like the two big Kia and PSA Peugeot car plants
attracted under Dzurinda's government that have made the country
the world's biggest producer of vehicles per capita.
But firms complain of opaque tenders and weak rule of law.
The Slovak Employers' Union is hoping for a new government
that pursues pro-business policies, after SMER and the
Nationalists pushed through laws to give more power to unions.
"The current government has been anti-business oriented,"
said employers' group spokesman, Martin Hostak.
"We expect the next government to improve business
environment, get rid of anomalies, not to hike taxes... and
reform the (state-run, pay-as-you-go) pension system."
To form a right-wing coalition, SaS and SDKU would look for
support from two ethnic Hungarian factions and the Christian
Democrats. The poll showed all have enough support to clear the
minimum 5 percent threshold to make it into parliament.
Fico has suggested he could work with some of the opposition
parties, but most have rejected that idea.
Unemployment is 12.5 percent, a five-year high. Tension is
also rising between Bratislava and Budapest, which have long
clashed over Slovakia's 10 percent ethnic Hungarian minority.
Those ties chilled more when Fico invited the anti-minority
Nationalists to join him in power, while Hungary's new
right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, created a law giving
limited citizenship to Hungarians living abroad.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
