BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- Former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar has won a decisive victory in Slovakia's general election and is set to attempt what he has twice failed to do -- form a stable government and hold it together.


Meciar, whose Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, or HZDS, won 34.96 of the vote on a platform of opposition to rapid economic reform at the weekend, begins horsetrading Monday to build a new government with a big head start over his rivals.


The HZDS won nearly 25 percentage points more than the second-placed Common Choice group, led by the reformed communist Party of the Democratic Left, which limped home with just 10.41 percent. No one doubts that Meciar, an ebullient nationalist who fell in a parliamentary confidence vote in March, is a master at political comebacks.


But twice before, governments under his leadership have disintegrated as one ally after another walked out in rows over policy, Meciar's powerful personality and his autocratic leadership style.


Members of a group representing Slovakia's Hungarian minority, which seems likely to be excluded from any coalition despite finishing third with 10.18 percent, forecast no end to Slovakia's political instability.


Kalman Petocz of the Hungarian Civic Party forecast a quick break-up of any coalition between Meciar and the rightist Slovak National Party, a far-right grouping which won 5.4 percent of the vote and a traditional partner of the HZDS. "A HZDS-SNS coalition won't be a stable coalition," he said.


Constitutionally, Slovak governments have four-year terms, but since the 1989 fall of communism, administrations led successively by Meciar and his rivals have failed to stay the course.


The elections, held Friday and Saturday, were the first since the Czechoslovak federation split in two last year.


President Michal Kovac, who will meet with leading parties Tuesday, has expressed a hope that Slovakia could at last achieve stable government. Though he has scarcely disguised his wish to bar Meciar from power, Kovac will find it hard to ignore the HZDS mandate when he seeks a candidate to form a coalition.


Meciar has yet to appear in public since voting ended. But his economic adviser Sergej Kozlik ruled out pushing him aside. "The HZDS will put together a coalition only under the condition that Meciar be prime minister," he said.


Outgoing Prime Minister Jozef Moravcik, whose centrist Democratic Union polled 8.57 percent, pinned his hopes on broadening his coalition to include the HZDS.


But Kozlik poured cold water on an alliance with the Democratic Union, which includes several HZDS defectors, saying: "It's hard to go for a holiday with your former wife right after a divorce."