Slovaks voted in an election yesterday that the leftist party of former premier Robert Fico was poised to win as an uprecendented corruption scandal took its toll on governing right-wing rivals.

Anger over the so-called ‘Gorilla’ graft revelations erupted on the capital’s streets on the eve of the poll, when rock-throwing protesters clashed with police who used teargas and detained 19 demonstrators.

Gorilla is the code-name for a source in a secret service wiretap report leaked online late last year that pointed to a web of shady connections between many centre-right politicians and a local financial group.

In a nod to what the EU could expect of him as prime minister, Fico underscored his commitment to it as he cast his ballot in Bratislava.

“Slovakia is a country that gets more from the EU than it gives. If the EU shows solidarity toward us, it is our duty to show solidarity toward EU,” he said.

Economic woes are another factor in the election in the ex-communist nation of 5.4 million people, the eurozone’s second poorest member, where unemployment is above 13 per cent.

Although growth this year is forecast at 1.1 per cent, its export-driven economy makes the small nation vulnerable to the region’s wider slump.

Fico, 47, has sought to woo voters by vowing to improve social welfare, and to raise taxes for the rich and for top-earning businesses.

Opinion polls showed his Smer social democrats tipped to win, and the SDKU-DS of outgoing Premier Iveta Radicova struggling with support that may fall as low as five per cent, the threshold for parliamentary representation.

The election is being held early after the centre-right government collapsed in October in a party dispute on whether Slovakia, which joined the eurozone in 2009, should pay into a European bailout fund.

The issue on most voters’ minds yesterday was the Gorilla scandal that suggests parties in the 1998-2006 government of then premier Mikulas Dzurinda, now the ruling party leader, had corrupt ties with financial group Penta.