The president of Slovakia has accepted the resignation of long-serving prime minister Robert Fico after he was forced to step down by a furore over the murder of an investigative journalist.

But the departure of the embattled Mr Fico will not assuage the anger of many ordinary Slovaks, who have turned out in their tens of thousands in the past two weeks to protest against the killing of Jan Kuciak.

The 27-year-old reporter had been investigating cronyism, corruption and the government’s alleged links to organised crime.

Mr Fico, who has dominated Slovak politics for more than a decade, had offered to resign only on the condition that his party, Smer-SD, be allowed to choose his successor.

That demand was acceded to by Andrej Kiska, the president, who said the mandate to form a new government would go to deputy prime minister Peter Pellegrini, an economist of Italian origins who is a member of the same party as the outgoing prime minister.

Protesters, who have staged the biggest demonstrations in Slovakia since the Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in 1989, said the deal was deeply disappointing because it left the ruling coalition in power.

They want fresh elections to be called and will repeat those demands on Friday when, for the third week running, tens of thousands are expected to turn out in towns and cities across Slovakia.

“It’s not enough and it is definitely not a solution to the crisis,” protest organiser Laura Palencikova told The Telegraph.

“Our primary goal is the removal of the whole government. We want new elections.

“We’re tired of this government. The corruption we have learnt about is just the tip of the iceberg. They won’t listen to us, they’re just playing with us. This is not democracy. We’re young and we are going to fight,” said Ms Palencikova, 22, from the city of Martin in northern Slovakia.

Mr Pellegrini, 42, presented himself to the president on Thursday and delivered signatures showing that a majority in parliament support the transition of leadership.

Analysts said Mr Fico, 53, had done all he could to keep the coalition, which is made up of three parties, in power.

“It’s a closed-door, Sopranos-style deal,” said Samuel Abraham, a political analyst in Bratislava.

“Fico wants continuity of the regime. Pellegrini is one of his favourites. He has no real legitimacy – he’s a Mr Nobody. I can’t recall him doing anything memorable.”

Mr Kuciak, 27, was the first journalist to have been murdered in Slovakia’s history and the killing has galvanised large swathes of society.

He was investigating alleged links between government figures and the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which hails from Calabria in southern Italy, when he and his fiancée were shot dead in their home by unknown assailants last month.

Slovak police said Mr Kuciak’s death was “most likely” connected to his investigations into links between politicians and the Italian mafia, which he alleged acquired farmland in eastern Slovakia through intimidation and fraudulently claimed massive EU subsidies.

In one case, a mafia-linked company claimed subsidies eight times greater than the land it actually owned.

He uncovered the fact that a topless model who was appointed as a senior aide to the prime minister, Mr Fico, had previously been the girlfriend and business partner of an alleged member of the ‘Ndrangheta.

Maria Troskova, who competed in the 2007 final of the Miss Universe contest, has denied any wrongdoing but resigned from her job pending the murder investigation.

Viliam Jasan, an MP and head of the state security council, to whom she had been an assistant, also resigned.

Her former lover, Italian businessman Antonino Vadala, was arrested over the murder of the journalist, but later released.

However, on Tuesday he was arrested again, on unrelated charges of drug trafficking. Italy is seeking his extradition.

The bodies of Mr Kuciak and his girlfriend, Martina Kusnirova, who had planned to get married in May, were found on February 25.

They had been dead for several days and their assassin, or assassins, were long gone.

Click Here: gws giants guernsey 2019