Related: Opposition Smer leads Slovak elections
                 Slovakia's opposition Smer wins parliamentary elections: exit poll

Slovakia's Prime Minister and the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union - Democratic Party (SDKU-DS) leader Mikulas Dzurinda waves to journalists as he leaves the party headquarters after Slovakia's general election in Bratislava June 18, 2006. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

    PRAGUE, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Slovakia's leftist opposition Smer party has won Saturday's parliamentary elections with over 29 percent of votes, full preliminary results showed on Sunday.

    Smer, led by Robert Fico, won the legislative elections with 29.14 percent of the votes, while Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union came as the second with 18.35 percent, the results showed.

    After the results were released, Fico, 41, met with his supporters at the party's headquarters in Slovakia's capital Bratislava. Terming the results as "fantastic", Fico joined his supporters in singing the Slovak national anthem.

    Prime Minister Dzurinda also conceded defeat to Fico, who campaigned on a platform to roll back many of Dzurinda's reforms and restore social benefits.

    However, Dzurinda, who led the east European country into NATO and the EU in 2004 during his part two terms, said the reforms should "continue".

    Under Dzurinda's government, foreign investment flooded in and the economy chalked up a robust growth of 6.1 percent in 2005, but the free-market economy also resulted in a high unemployment rate and a widening gap between the rich and poor.

    Although ranking the first in the elections, Smer fell short of an outright majority, which means it has to strike a coalition to win a majority in the 150-seat parliament. Enditem