SLOVAKIAN prime minister Robert Fico has resigned following a crisis over the killing of a journalist.

President Andrej Kiska has accepted the resignation and asked Peter Pellegrini, Fico’s deputy prime minister, to form a new government.

Tens of thousands of Slovakians rallied last week to demand the government’s resignation over the deaths of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova.

Kuciak, who was investigating tax evasion, and Kusnirova were found shot dead in their home.

Police president, Tibor Gaspar, had said that the assassinations probably had something to do with the 27-year-old’s “investigative activities”.

Fico had previously said if that was the case, it would be “an unprecedented attack on freedom of the press and democracy in Slovakia”.

Fico’s resignation is meant to keep the current three-party coalition in power and avoid the possibility of early elections.

Pellegrini, who is from Fico’s leftist Smer Social Democracy, will form the same coalition with the Most-Hid party representing ethnic Hungarians and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party.

The coalition has a majority in parliament.