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| - Face masks and gloves were mandatory attire as Slovakia's president swore in a new government in the EU country Saturday, against a backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak. Prime Minister Igor Matovic has made combatting coronavirus infections and endemic corruption a pillar of his four-party centre-right coalition government. His anti-graft OLaNO party ousted the populist-left Smer-Social Democracy from power last month by galvanising voter outrage over the 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and the high-level graft that his death exposed. "You are not taking over power," President Zuzana Caputova told new ministers, adding they were "mainly taking responsibility for this country and its citizens". Matovic, a 47-year-old former media and property mogul, vowed his would be "a government that will govern with and for the people" His coalition commands 95 seats in the 150-seat parliament, a majority allowing it to amend the constitution. Liberals and libertarians have joined OLaNO in the coalition along with the controversial right-wing We Are Family party, led by Boris Kollar, another businessman-turned-politician. A soft eurosceptic with anti-migrant views, Kollar previously met with European far-right leaders including Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's League party and Marine Le Pen from France's National Front. A coronavirus-related EU travel ban prevented Ivan Korcok, the new foreign minister, from attending the ceremony. It is unclear how long he will remain in the US, where he served as Slovakia's ambassador to Washington until now. Slovak MPs were also required to wear face masks and gloves to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus as they met on Friday for the first parliamentary sitting since last month's election. A eurozone country of 5.4 million people, Slovakia has 178 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus with no deaths. juh/mas/jv
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