Slovak PM Fico wins election, faces challenge to form govt.

Bratislava : Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has won the country's parliamentary election but faces a tough challenge to form the majority.

Fico, a leftist leader took 28.7 percent of the vote on Saturday, far ahead of others but less than around 35 percent predicted in opinion surveys, results from 91 percent of voting districts showed.

The election is closely being watched in Brussels as Slovakia is due to take over the European Union's rotating presidency from July, giving it a bigger role in the EU policy discussions over the bloc's migration crisis.

Fico had pledged not to accept the EU-agreed quotas on relocating refugees, who have flooded into Greece and Italy from Syria and beyond.

Slovakia, which has a tiny Muslim minority, has not seen any large numbers of refugees pass through its territory.

Fico's failure to form the government could likely lead a group of centre-right parties to form a broad but possibly unstable anti-Fico coalition, a repeat of the 2010 election.

Fico's bet on immigration fears might have brought votes to others.

According to reports, the far-right radical group of central Slovak Governor Marian Kotleba won 8.2 percent of the vote, nearly three times more than what the opinion polls had predicted.

Boris Kollar, who headed a new anti-immigration party of businessman, also surprisingly crossed the five percent threshold to win seats.