* Results show centre-right wins majority and can oust Fico
* Fico says wants chance to try and form a government
* Budget, Hungary, corruption dominate vote
* For a table with results, click on []
(Adds centre-right comments, complete results)
By Martin Santa and Jan Lopatka
BRATISLAVA, June 13 (Reuters) - Centre-right parties won a
majority in Slovakia's election, giving them a chance to oust
Prime Minister Robert Fico with a coalition that must cut the
budget gap and repair ties with neighbouring Hungary.
While voters chose the grouping of economic liberals whose
reforms led Slovakia into the EU in 2004 and lured billions of
euros in foreign investment, the leftist Fico remained the most
popular politician in the euro zone's poorest country.
Loved for a tough leadership style favouring average Slovaks
over big business, Fico won the biggest single share of
Saturday's vote with 34.8 percent for his SMER party, according
to complete preliminary results on Sunday.
But the vote count gave 79 of parliament's 150 seats to four
centre-right and ethnic Hungarian parties.
The conservative SDKU, which introduced a flat tax rate,
sold major state firms, and overhauled the pension and welfare
sectors when it ruled from 1998 to 2006, was second with 15.4
percent of the ballot from Saturday's election.
It hopes to form a coalition with the conservative Christian
Democrats (KDH), the newly formed liberal Freedom and Solidarity
party (SaS), and the ethnic Hungarian Most-Hid party.
Analysts say a centre-right grouping would be better placed
to cut a budget deficit that hit 6.8 percent of gross domestic
product last year to a target of 3 percent in 2012.
"Let me thank those who ... showed confidence that we can
have a solution and kick-start Slovakia, halt the arrogance of
power, and let me say the wish is that this country again is
called the tiger of Europe," SDKU leader Iveta Radicova said.
Slovakia's export-reliant economy, which shrank by 4.7
percent last year, has been recovering and the EU forecasts 2.7
percent growth this year, the bloc's fastest along with Poland.
OPPOSITION UNITED
As results were coming out, Radicova met the leaders of her
potential future allies for first informal talks.
Fico said he would try to form a government, in line with
the tradition that the president gives the first chance to the
biggest party.
"When a party gets a result like 35 percent, it has to give
it a try," Fico said in a post-election television debate.
But he admitted he was facing a tough task.
"If the right wing decides to form a cabinet, they will do
it," he said.
All the four centre-right party leaders swiftly rejected
Fico's call for cooperation.
"We need a change, we need honest politics to prevail," said
KDH chief Jan Figel, who used to serve as Slovakia's member of
the European Commission.
Political analyst Samuel Abraham said Fico had "almost zero
chance".
President Ivan Gasparovic was due to hold a news conference
at 1100 GMT on Sunday.
Business and the opposition accuse Fico, whose popularity
was driven by a generous welfare agenda, of wasting public funds
and polarising politics with a confrontational style.
The junior ruling HZDS party of former Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar, whose policies took the country into
international isolation in the 1990s, did not win any seats.
The centre-right grouping is seen by analysts as the better
force to fight corruption and improve frosty links with Hungary.
There have been strains over the rights of Slovakia's half a
million Hungarian minority. Relations soured further after the
far-right Slovak National Party joined Fico's cabinet in 2006.
In Hungary in April, right-winger Viktor Orban won an
election on a ticket that included fighting for the rights of
Hungarian minorities abroad.
Slovaks adopted the euro in 2009 and, with living standards
at just 72 percent of the EU average, have questioned whether
they should help richer debt-laden euro zone countries.
SDKU and SaS have said they would refuse to pay Slovakia's
800-million-euro share of the EU bailout for Greece.
(Additional reporting by Michael Winfrey, Editing by Alison
Williams)
