Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose Smer-Social Democratic party won 34.79 percent of the votes in Saturday's general election, the largest share, was appointed on Sunday by President Ivan Gasparovic to form a new government.

"Smer-SD has received the largest number of votes from people, so why would I deprive the party that has voters' utmost confidence of this right?" said Gasparovic at a press conference.

The main opposition party SDKU-DS party came in second with 15.42 percent of the cast ballots, or 28 seats, followed the 12.14 percent won by the extra-parliamentary Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), according to results released by the Slovak Statistical Office on Sunday.

The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and the Slovak-Hungarian Most-Hid party got roughly the same portion of the vote, which amounted to 8.52 percent and 8.12 percent respectively.

The Slovak National Party (SNS) scored only 5.07 percent of the vote, barely over the five-percent threshold needed to win representation in the nation's parliament.

The four rightist parties announced earlier in the day that they would negotiate on forming a government as early as Sunday. The new coalition would have 79 seats in 150-seat Parliament.

"I am absolutely satisfied with the results. I did not count on such a high share of votes, I even did not dream about it. Thirty-five percent means absolutely great success for Smer -Social democrats.... It allows us to meet Mr. president and accept from him the authorization to negotiate about forming a new government," Fico said.

The turnout of the election reached 58.83 percent, registering an increase compared with the 54.67 percent of the 2006 election.

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