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Slovakia's president on Monday said she would task the leader of the centre-right, anti-graft OLaNO party with forming a new four-party coalition after his party won the weekend election. "If they (the leaders of the other three centre-right parties) declare their willingness to form a coalition... I will then entrust Igor Matovic with forming the new government," President Zuzana Caputova told reporters. "I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Who suddenly gets the main key to the country and now has a great responsibility," Matovic told reporters. Slovak voters ousted the governing populist-left in an election Saturday in what appeared to be a backlash over the 2018 murder of an investigative journalist probing corruption. The proposed coalition government would consist of OLaNO, which took 25 percent of votes for 53 seats in the 150-strong parliament, the We Are Family conservatives and the liberal parties Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and "For the People". Together they have 95 seats. Caputova said she hopes the government will be formed "within days rather than weeks". Under the constitution, there is no deadline for forming a new government. But the president is required to call the first session of parliament within 30 days after the official election results are published. juh-amj/jj
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