Sharjah24 - AFP: Following a resolution of no confidence against the centrist minority administration of Prime Minister Eduard Heger, Slovakian MPs decided to call early elections on Tuesday.

They will take place on September 30, parliamentary speaker Boris Kollar said, adding: "I am happy this circus around the election date is over".

The no-confidence vote in December did not automatically trigger early elections, but the question of whether they would be held had remained unresolved.

The president and the opposition had called for them to be held even earlier, in the spring.

Under the normal electoral timetable, the next parliamentary elections would have been due in February 2024.

The September date was backed by 92 MPs, with 54 voting against the move on Tuesday.

The motion against Heger was initiated by his former liberal ally Richard Sulik, and came three months after the governing coalition lost its parliamentary majority.

He told reporters that Heger's government had "lost confidence".

"We are a government that will lead Slovakia responsibly to early elections because citizens need real help to manage crises and protect themselves from high prices," the government's main party OLaNO said last week.

The centre-right government of the EU country of 5.4 million won the 2020 general election on an anti-corruption programme.